True Crime of Insurance Fraud Number Nine

The Olde Time Fire - Arson For Profit

True Crime Stories from an Insurance Fraud Expert

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE presents videos so you can learn how insurance fraud is perpetrated and what is necessary to deter or defeat insurance fraud. This Video Blog of True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud with the names and places changed to protect the guilty are all based upon investigations conducted by me and fictionalized to create a learning environment for claims personnel, SIU investigators, insurers, police, and lawyers better understand insurance fraud and weapons that can be used to deter or defeat a fraudulent insurance claim.

The brothers were operating a successful bar and grill in once bustling steel mill town of Fontana, California. Drawing on the hard drinking, fast living steel workers their Olde Tyme Bar and Grill was a success. They would sell five to ten barrels of beer a day. The bar was noisy and violent. Seldom would a night pass without a fight breaking out.

The brothers tired of the fights and boisterous customers decided to move to an area with a better class of clientele. They ignored that their success was as a result of the type of people they served.

They rented a 7,000 square foot restaurant in the college town of Claremont. The brothers’ called it the Olde Tyme Restaurant and furnished it much like their bar and grill. Infatuated by their success in the mill town they signed a twenty-year lease on the property. The brothers even added one thousand square feet to the restaurant. They spent most of the profits they had made from the Olde Tyme Bar and Grill in remodeling the new restaurant in Claremont. They opened with fanfare and initial success. An old time bar and grill in a college and bedroom community was a novelty.

In two months, the novelty wore off. The brothers found that they were serving lunch to two couples. Dinner and dancing clients usually did not outnumber the waiters and waitresses. Fear struck the brothers with images of imminent failure and bankruptcy.

© 2022 – Barry Zalma

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders.

He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business.

Subscribe to “Zalma on Insurance” at https://zalmaoninsurance.locals.com/subscribe and “Excellence in Claims Handling” at https://barryzalma.substack.com/welcome.

You can contact Mr. Zalma at https://www.zalma.com, https://www.claimschool.com, [email protected] and [email protected] . Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award.

You may find interesting the podcast “Zalma On Insurance” at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; you can follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at; you should see Barry Zalma’s videos on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; or videos on https://rumble.com/zalma. Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims–library/ The last two issues of ZIFL are available at https://zalma.com/zalmas-insurance-fraud-letter-2/