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Knights accused of using ‘phantom’ members for insurance fraud

Posted On: Sep. 6, 2019 1:11 PM CST

K of C

The life insurance company of the Knights of Columbus has been accused of “grossly” inflating its membership numbers to obtain better ratings, according to news site BuzzFeed News.

The Knights stated in its annual report that it has 1.9 million members — who according to the charter must be Catholic men over the age of 18 — and 1.5 million of those members have life insurance through the organization. However, Colorado-based IT firm UKnight alleges that upward of 28% of the organization’s members are “phantom members,” and claims that the Knights of Columbus fails to remove inactive, non-dues-paying members off of its rolls in order to secure a better rating from insurance ratings agencies, the news outlet reported.

The IT firm also accused the Knights of Columbus of violating a spoken contract and stealing “trade secrets” from the IT company in an attempt to create their own software without having to pay UKnight, said BuzzFeed.