A longtime claims manager for Auto-Owners Insurance Co. has been charged with defrauding the company of more than $43,000.
Ian V. Eisnaugle, 41, of Hendersonville, North Carolina, was charged with insurance fraud and forgery in June after he reportedly submitted forged rental invoices for a residence in which he did not live, the NC Department of Insurance said in a bulletin.
Eisnaugle’s Linkedin page shows he was a claims manager, adjuster, and most recently, an arbitrator and trainer at Auto-Owners in the Asheville, North Carolina area. He apparently left the insurer in February of this year, the Linkedin page shows.
The arrest warrant in Henderson County, near Asheville, indicates that Eisnaugle filed a claim with Auto-Owners in September 2024, then submitted the invoices showing he had incurred the rental expenses at a home in Nashville, Tennessee. He was not living at the address during the claim period, according to the arrest warrant, which was signed by an investigator with the NCDOI. Auto-Owners initiated the complaint and investigation, the DOI noted.
“The defendant acted without authority and with the intent to injure and defraud with deceit,” the warrant reads.
Eisnaugle was released on bond after his arrest. A hearing is set for Aug. 25.
He was granted an adjuster license in North Carolina in February of this year, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners license page shows. Eisnaugle could not be reached at the phone number and email address listed on the license page. Auto-Owners representatives did not respond to an Insurance Journal request for information about the case.
The four most recent cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed on the same Texas property, marking the largest cluster of detections to be reported since the parasite was found in the US earlier this month.
Three cattle and one goat were detected to have screwworm in Terrell County, which is adjacent to Mexico, according to the US Department of Agriculture. All were from a single premises, the Texas Animal Health Commission said in a Wednesday email.
That brings the total number of cases in the U.S. to 19 since early June when the screwworm was originally detected in a calf in Zavala County, Texas. The outbreak is the first in the US in a decade and the first in livestock in about 50 years, threatening the nation’s largest cattle state at a time when the country’s herd has already shrunk.
The screwworm is a fly whose larvae burrow into the wounds of warm-blooded animals, and it usually spreads via the movement of infested animals. Infestations are treatable but can cause death if undetected. The screwworm poses no threat to the safety of the U.S. food supply.
Epidemiological investigations have not yet been completed on the Terrell County cases, but tracebacks are currently underway to determine how the infestations occurred, the commission said. There is currently a quarantine in parts of more than a dozen Texas counties, according to the commission.
