Change Their Address, Get Their Mail

A large Florida insurance carrier has discovered that its mail was re-routed for at least two weeks in June, meaning that checks mailed to it — along with insurance applications that contained Social Security numbers and other financial information useful to an identity thief—were instead sent to a Hialeah apartment.

Officials with Citizens Property Insurance are trying to warn roughly one million policyholders and new applicants of the identity theft dangers — and that mail sent to its office may not have been received, according to a report by Florida’s St. Petersburg Times.

Insurance company officials discovered the address change only when the company received a hard copy confirmation mailed to its headquarters — apparently more than a week after the U.S. Postal Service had already begun re-routing its mail. Officials said someone used an online change-of-address form to re-route mail sent to the company's physical address in Jacksonville. Insurance company officials caught a second request — this one to change its post office box — before it went into effect.

"There are no controls that (the Postal Service) has in place, as far as we can tell, to stop this on the front end," Citizens spokeswoman Christine Turner Ashburn told the Times. "We found out the hard way. That's normal process."

Citizens covers Florida homeowners who are unable to get private insurance on high-risk properties.

Citizens has pinpointed a window between June 14 and 29 as the likely dates when mail sent to the insurer was redirected. Citizens has more information on its Web site . And anyone with questions is being asked to call (888) 685-1555. Company officials said the company will work with customers whose checks may have been fraudulently cashed.