AG sues insurance agency for collecting millions in bogus fees

[The Straight Story]

AG sues insurance agency for collecting millions in bogus fees


PEABODY – A Peabody-based insurance agency is the target of a lawsuit filed last month in Suffolk Superior Court by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office.

The suit names agents Andrew Crowther, Jr. and Kathleen Burke along with owners Cyrus and Jeffrey Kilgore of Kilgore Insurance Agency, claiming the defendants devised an elaborate scheme to defraud clients, significantly overcharging numerous retail customers on premiums in the surplus lines insurance market.

Prosecutors say this practice was perpetrated against more than 100 customers in the past 10 years, billing them for millions of undisclosed agency fees by misrepresenting those fees as insurance premiums. The suit estimates Kilgore reaped $3.4 million in profits by doing so, but that’s just the past six years – the agency may have gleaned millions more before that.

A letter signed by both Cyrus and Jeffrey Kilgore is now posted on the agency’s Web site, calling the case a “dispute” with Coakley’s office.

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