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NEWLY RELEASED DOCUments from the Arkansas Insurance Department show that Steve Standridge, the Mount Ida insurance agent, denied that anything was wrong with the $4 million he claimed were unencumbered assets for Gibraltar National Insurance Co. of Little Rock.
On Feb. 12, before the AID learned that Standridge may have also forged signatures in order to pledge his agency's assets as collateral, Standridge appeared before the AID to answer questions about certificates of deposits that were supposed to be capital assets of Gibraltar, a small workers' compensation carrier.
The AID had just learned from Gibraltar President Audra Welcher that Standridge might have pledged $4 million worth of CDs as collateral on a personal loan. Having them otherwise encumbered put Gibraltar into technical insolvency, according to the AID.
The AID warned Standridge that it was a felony to misrepresent or conceal the nature of an insurance company's assets, according to a transcript of the Feb. 12 meeting.
Standridge said that he used...