720 ILCS 5/17-10.5(b)(2) – Organizer of an Aggravated Insurance Fraud Conspiracy
This law explains what happens when someone organizes or helps lead a group that commits serious insurance fraud.
This law says that if a person helps plan or manage a group committing aggravated insurance fraud, they can face serious felony charges and punishments.
(b) Aggravated insurance fraud.
- A person commits aggravated insurance fraud as an organizer when they take part in a plan to commit aggravated insurance fraud against a private business and act as an organizer, leader, or financier of that plan.
(d) Sentence:
- If someone is guilty under section (b)(2), it is a Class X felony. This means it is a very serious crime, no matter how much money or property was involved.
(e) Civil damages for insurance fraud.
- If someone lies to get money from an insurance company, they must pay back either three times the money wrongfully received or twice the value of what they tried to get–whichever is higher–plus attorney’s fees.
- However, if an insurance company sues someone in bad faith (without good reason), that company must pay the person twice the amount claimed, plus attorney’s fees.
(f) Determination of property value. If the exact dollar amount isn’t listed, the “value” means the fair market replacement value or the reasonable cost to replace or reimburse services.
(g) Actions by State licensing agencies.
- State police and licensing agencies must work together to enforce this law.
- If someone with a professional license in Illinois is convicted of insurance fraud, the Illinois State Police must tell all licensing agencies.
- Those agencies must report within 6 months on what actions were taken, such as suspending or revoking the person’s license.
(h) Definitions. Words like “obtain,” “deception,” and “property” have the same meanings as they do in Article 15 of the Illinois Criminal Code.
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