Discovery of Undead Brings Insurance Probers to Life

Two Northridge women came back from death, an official with the state Department of Insurance said Thursday, but the department’s investigators were not cheering.

Imelda Rodriguez and her mother, Gloria Gener, both Filipinas, were falsely reported dead in order to collect on life insurance policies, said Ronald E. Warthen, chief investigator for the department’s Fraud Bureau.

Rodriguez, 43, was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of insurance fraud and grand theft, and was in custody in lieu of $100,000 bail, Warthen said.

A warrant was issued for the arrest of her husband, Eduardo Rodriguez, 43, who is believed to be in the Philippines, “where, we understand, he’s running for political office--mayor or governor of someplace,” Warthen said.

$50,000 Policy

Gener, who did not file any insurance claims, was questioned but not arrested.

Warthen said that, in 1982, Gener took out a $50,000 policy on her own life, naming her daughter and son-in-law, the Rodriguezes, as beneficiaries. In October, 1984, Imelda Rodriguez reported to the insurance company that her mother had died of a stroke in the Philippines and provided a death certificate from that country, Warthen said. The insurance company paid off.

Earlier this year, Imelda Rodriguez took out four policies on her own life, totaling about $1 million, naming her husband as beneficiary on all of them, Warthen said. He said that, in August, Eduardo Rodriguez submitted a Filipino death certificate attesting that his wife had been struck and killed by a car in the Philippines to all four insurance companies.

One of the companies paid Eduardo Rodriguez a $100,000 benefit, Warthen said.

However, he said, an investigator for one of the other companies, reported to state officials that there was evidence the “dead” woman was still alive.

Routine Phone Call

“It was one of those happenstances,” Warthen said. “He simply made a routine phone call to a prior employer of Imelda’s, a bank, and someone remarked that she had left a forwarding address when she quit. He was following up on that, not expecting to find anything, and was surprised to find indications of a live person.”

He said state investigators then discovered that, not only was Imelda Rodriguez living in an apartment in Northridge, but her mother--supposedly dead for a year--was living with her.

Warthen said frauds involving foreign death certificates “put insurance companies at a tremendous disadvantage, because it is very difficult to confirm their veracity.”

The death certificates were genuine Philippine documents, he said, “but what hasn’t been done yet is to go to the doctors who signed the certificates, which will likely be done in the near future by Filipino authorities at our request.”

Similar Case

He said investigators found no evidence to link the Rodriguezes to another Philippine couple, Jose and Luzviminda Ramirez of North Hollywood, who were arrested in May on charges of insurance fraud and grand theft.

Luzviminda Ramirez allegedly presented a death certificate from the Philippines declaring that her husband had drowned there, collected a $28,000 death benefit and applied to collect another for $100,000. Insurance investigators said they found Ramirez alive and living with his wife.

“There are a lot of similarities,” Warthen said, “but we see no connection between the two cases.”