Court Orders Claimant To Repay $21K To Texas Mutual

Austin, TX (CompNewsNetwork) - Texas Mutual Insurance Company reported today that a Travis County district court sentenced Lashantae Reeves of Houston on workers' compensation fraud-related charges. The court sentenced Reeves to one year of deferred adjudication and ordered her to repay $21,000 in benefits to Texas Mutual.

Reeves reported a job-related injury while working as a clerk for Harrison Personnel Services of Houston. She claimed she was unable to work as a result of the injury, and Texas Mutual began paying income benefits to her.

Meanwhile, Texas Mutual uncovered evidence that Reeves was working as a customer service representative for a Houston law firm and as a health education coordinator for a Houston health clinic while receiving income benefits.

Investigators call this type of scam double-dipping because the claimant collects benefits for being too injured to work when he or she is, in fact, gainfully employed. Texas law requires claimants to contact their workers' comp carrier when they return to work. Left unchecked, double-dipping and other workers' comp fraud can lead to higher premiums for all Texas employers.

About Texas Mutual Insurance Company

Austin-based Texas Mutual Insurance Company is the state's leading provider of workers' compensation insurance. Since 1991, the company has provided a stable, competitively priced source of workers' comp insurance for Texas employers. Texas Mutual maintains three teams of in-house fraud investigators. In 2009, they saved, identified or recovered $16 million through their claimant, health care provider and employer fraud investigations.