Insurance agent charged with “Good Student” discount fraud

For release on March 18, 2023

CONTACT:
Lance Daugherty
Deputy District Attorney
Insurance Fraud Unit
(408) 792-2887
 

Insurance agent charged with “Good Student” discount fraud

An auto insurance agent has been charged with fraud after he submitted fake University of California, Berkeley college diplomas, fake report cards, and fake letters from a local community college claiming his clients were students to get them lower rates – and thousands of dollars in commissions for himself.

Thomas Truong, 61, of San Jose, submitted 10 “Good Student" forms from Mission College in Santa Clara to his place of employment to get discounts for his clients. Investigators found that eight of the 10 had never attended the college and the other two did not attend during the dates listed on the form.

Truong, who was fired by Farmers Insurance after his crime came to light, will be arraigned today at 1:30 p.m. in the Hall of Justice in San Jose. If convicted, he will likely be ordered to pay restitution in addition to a county jail sentence.

“The massive losses caused by insurance fraud statewide – large and small – trickle down to us all,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “We’re determined to enforce the law and even the playing field for businesses and customers.”

In all, a California Department of Insurance Investigator who probed Truong’s work in 2022 discovered 10 fraudulently altered college diplomas, 14 fraudulent report cards from high schools all over the Bay Area, and 10 fraudulent school official statements.

Truong was ultimately fired by Farmers in June 2022. When the former clients were shown the fraudulent documents, they each told the investigator that they did not provide those documents to Truong and had never seen them before. Many of the former clients also said that they did not know that they were receiving the discounts that he had fraudulently obtained for them. One client’s parents told the investigator that his son was not going to the high school on Truong’s form but was going to a South Bay private school which would have qualified him for the discount anyway.