The Financial Services Bureau of Insurance Fraud and the Division of Workers Compensation’s Bureau of Compliance in Florida joined forces and apprehended a business owner they believed to be operating a fraudulent workers compensation insurance and payroll services company.

Ivan Hernandez is accused of taking over $1 million dollars from 58 companies who paid for workers compensation policies that never existed.

Hernandez led his clients to believe that he handled their workers compensation policies that provided insurance coverage for their employees. Each company was allegedly issued a fake insurance policy certificate that gave the false appearance of being a valid form of insurance coverage.

These companies made their policy premium payments each month to Hernandez, who then fraudulently pocketed the money.

Investigators began looking into Hernandez’s actions when he changed the company name from Global Staffing Services to Professional Staffing and Payroll Services in March of last year. When he changed the company name, he failed to change the corresponding workers compensation insurance policies.

With the name change, Hernandez began promoting the business to potential clients as being a full-service workers compensation insurance company that also provided payroll services to clients.

This action caught the eye of investigators, and the investigation resulted in Hernandez being taken into custody in July on fraud charges. He was transported to the Lee County Jail.

As a result of his alleged fraudulent activity, Hernandez is charged with scheming to defraud, money laundering, aggravated white collar crime and racketeering. If convicted on these charges, Hernandez will face over 25 years in jail.

Actions such as the ones alleged here cast the entire staffing industry in a bad light and make it much more difficult for staffing companies to find quality insurance coverage.

Work First has the industry experience to identify the bad actors.  Avoiding fraud losses is one of the reasons why we are able to provide consistent and stable coverage to the staffing industry.