A 37-year-old Iowa woman has now been sentenced to prison, authorities said.
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A woman secretly added herself to her neighbor’s life insurance policy, then faked the Iowa neighbor’s death so she could steal death benefits, authorities said.
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Kimberly Nicole Hollingshed, of Muscatine, fraudulently received about $100,139 from the life insurance company in April 2022, according to a March 9 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.
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She used that money to buy a 2014 Buick Encore, a 2008 Jeep Liberty and a 2008 Hummer H3, according to Hollingshed’s plea agreement that she signed in November.
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Now the 37-year-old woman has been sentenced to 24 months in prison on a count of wire fraud, court records show.
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The defense attorney representing Hollingshed did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on March 10.
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Federal authorities said Hollingshed accessed the neighbor’s life insurance policy in February 2022, then she added an online profile without her neighbor’s permission.
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“With online account access, Hollingshed made changes to the victim’s policy and added herself as a policy beneficiary,” officials said.
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Once Hollingshed was listed as a beneficiary, in April, authorities said she told the life insurance company that her neighbor died and started the process to claim her death benefits.
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The insurance company required a copy of the woman’s death certificate before processing the claim, according to the plea agreement.
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As her neighbor hadn’t actually died, the woman provided a forged Iowa certificate of death, prosecutors said. She started with a real death certificate belonging to a 96-year-old Iowa woman who died in 2017, but changed the name, cause of death, location of death and other details, according to court records.
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The insurance company processed the claim, and the money was deposited into Hollingshed’s bank account that had a balance of $2.06, authorities said.
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Hollingshed is ordered to pay restitution, and she’ll be required to serve three years of supervised release once out of prison, according to the release.
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