Forge a Certificate of Insurance--Guilty of Crime: Certificate of Insurance Has Legal Efficacy.

• Author: Zalma, Barry
• Position: [ON MY RADAR]

* Although issued by insurance agents with alacrity, Certificates of Insurance (COA) are important documents relied upon by those who receive them to provide comfort that the person they are dealing with is appropriately insured. When someone fails to obtain an accurate COA or alters a legitimate COA and forges the document to make it state the coverages falsely that person is subject to criminal prosecution.

In State of Washington v. Stacy Ann Bradshaw, No. 75853-5-I, Court of Appeals of the State of Washington Division One (April 9, 2018) the Court of Appeals was asked to determine if there was sufficient evidence to support a charge under the current forgery statute. To support the charge the State needed to prove that the allegedly altered written instrument had "legal efficacy." Stacy Ann Bradshaw (Bradshaw), an escrow agent was convicted of forgery for altering a certificate of insurance to make it appear she had enough liability insurance to cover a transaction she had been hired to handle.

FACTS

In 2014, Bradshaw was a licensed escrow agent and the owner of North Sound Escrow. By law, an escrow agent must maintain several types of liability insurance. Bradshaw had coverage for crime as well as for errors and omissions through the insurance firm USI Kibble & Prentice. The limits were $1 million per claim.

In February 2014, Bradshaw was retained as the escrow agent for the sale of commercial property for the price of approximately $1.4 million. Umpqua Bank was the lender for one of the parties. Umpqua asked Bradshaw for a copy of her insurance information. Bradshaw obtained a "Certificate of Liability Insurance" from Kibble & Prentice showing her limits of $1 million. She gave Umpqua a copy of the certificate that was altered to represent that Bradshaw had coverage limits of $2 million. Umpqua noticed the alterations and contacted both Kibble & Prentice and the Department of Financial Institutions, the agency that regulates escrow agents. This led to the prosecution of Bradshaw on one count of forgery who was convicted and sentenced her to 40 hours of community service, $3,600 in financial restitution, and six months of community supervision.

Bradshaw appealed.

ANALYSIS

Evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, it permits a rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. At common law, forgery was the act of falsely making or...