OLYMPIA, Wash. _ A Connecticut businessman who specializes in insurance for golf tournament hole-in-one prizes has been charged with multiple felonies after repeatedly failing to pay up.
Kevin Kolenda, of Norwalk, Conn., was charged Wednesday in King County Superior Court with five counts of transacting insurance without a license, a class B felony. His arraignment is slated for Sept. 5.
Kolenda, 54, ignored a previous cease-and-desist order and a $125,000 fine from state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.
“We’ve been warning the public about Mr. Kolenda’s scam for years,” said Kreidler, whose Special Investigations Unit did the investigation that led to the charges. “He has a long history of selling illegal insurance, refusing to pay prize winners, and thumbing his nose at regulators.”
In some cases, charities have had to come up with the prize money. In others, the prize winners agreed to forego a prize.
Kolenda in 1995 started a business called Golf Marketing, working out of a home his parents owned in Norwalk. Since then, the business’ name has changed several times, including: Golf Marketing Worldwide LLC, Golf Marketing Inc., Hole-in-Won.com, and currently Hole-in-Won.com Worldwide. The company also has a regional office in Rye, N.Y.
Kolenda has repeatedly failed to pay winning golfers in Washington. Among them:
• In 2003, Kolenda illegally sold insurance for a tournament in Bremerton. But when a golfer got a hole in one and tried to claim the $10,000 prize, Kolenda wouldn’t pay.
• In 2004, Kolenda sold insurance for a Vancouver tournament. Again, a golfer got a hole in one. Kolenda refused to pay the $50,000 prize. After a hearing at which Kolenda failed to appear, he was ordered in 2008 to pay a $125,000 fine. He never did.
• In 2010, Kolenda sold coverage to pay $25,000 for a hole in one during a golf tournament in Snohomish. A player got a hole in one. His golf partners signed notarized forms attesting to the hole in one. The prize remains unpaid, despite numerous calls and emails from the partners and tournament officials.
Similar allegations have been made against Mr. Kolenda and/or his business in numerous other states, including Montana, Ohio, Georgia, California, New York, Hawaii, Alabama, Massachusetts, Florida, Connecticut and North Carolina.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
AHS11 Talk Posted
After a one-year delay, my talk from the 2011 Ancestral Health Symposium is online with slides synched. The talk is titled "Obesity: Old Solutions for a New Problem", and it's an overview of some of the research linking food reward to food intake and body fatness. This is the talk that introduced a fundamentally new idea to the ancestral community: not only does the chemical composition of food matter, but also its sensory qualities-- in fact, the sensory qualities of food are among the primary determinants of food intake. I didn't come up with the idea of course, I simply translated the research for a more general audience and put my own evolutionary spin on it.
The talk would be a bit different if I were to give it today, as my understanding of the subject has expanded, and my speaking skills have improved. However, the central message remains as true today as it was a year ago. You can find the talk here.
The slide synching was done by an extremely generous man named Ben Fury. As you can see in the video, he did an excellent job. Without Ben, this video would have remained in internet limbo forever.
Below, I've published a message from Ben explaining the interesting work that he does. Please contact him if you think it's interesting.
A Message from Ben Fury
The talk would be a bit different if I were to give it today, as my understanding of the subject has expanded, and my speaking skills have improved. However, the central message remains as true today as it was a year ago. You can find the talk here.
The slide synching was done by an extremely generous man named Ben Fury. As you can see in the video, he did an excellent job. Without Ben, this video would have remained in internet limbo forever.
Below, I've published a message from Ben explaining the interesting work that he does. Please contact him if you think it's interesting.
A Message from Ben Fury
I was writing a book on health, fitness and diet in 2009 when my house burned down in the Station Fire, along with 165,000 acres of my beloved Angeles National Forest. Since then, I've had a series of people needing help come through my life, that have upgraded and morphed my talents...
Seniors with chronic pain, falls, brittle bones, and stiff shrunken muscles.
Diabetics with out of control blood sugars, going blind, and having limbs lopped off.
Neurologically challenged people with spastic limbs and foggy brains.
Fat, listless, unhappy people with no idea how they got that way, seeing no way out of the darkness.
Each of them needing help in different ways, but all with an underlying theme of what works to help heal our conditions:
Seniors with chronic pain, falls, brittle bones, and stiff shrunken muscles.
Diabetics with out of control blood sugars, going blind, and having limbs lopped off.
Neurologically challenged people with spastic limbs and foggy brains.
Fat, listless, unhappy people with no idea how they got that way, seeing no way out of the darkness.
Each of them needing help in different ways, but all with an underlying theme of what works to help heal our conditions:
- Remove flour, sugar, beans, and heavily processed oils from our diet. Eat real food.
- Get strong.
- Get flexible.
- Stop ceding health responsibility to outside forces, and take charge of our own wellness.
- Only use truly evidence based medicine. Don't just pop the latest pill or get the latest surgery all the other people are doing. Be wary of the disease mongers in both the conventional and alternative camps.
- Find our "happy thoughts." Use the simple restoratives of sleep, play, and reflection, to let go of pain, find inner peace, and let in joy and purposeful outer direction.
The methods to accomplish these goals are varied, and I have both non-profit and for-profit ventures to share them.
Their websites are currently in development.
The for-profit is BenFury.com
The non-profit is PainRelieversUSA.org , whose mission statement is:
To move beyond pain management...
and learn to live pain free.
Feel free to write to me at: ben [at] benfury dot com
Their websites are currently in development.
The for-profit is BenFury.com
The non-profit is PainRelieversUSA.org , whose mission statement is:
To move beyond pain management...
and learn to live pain free.
Feel free to write to me at: ben [at] benfury dot com
"Auto accidents have decreased. Why did my insurance rates go up?"
Q: I read that auto accidents in Washington state have decreased, as have accident-related deaths. But my insurance premium just went up 15 percent. What's going on?
A: As Washington state's insurance regulator, we do our best to hold down insurance costs. But there are things other than accident rates that can affect your auto insurance premiums. Theft rates, auto glass costs, health care costs (for injuries in a crash) can all play a role. So can the fact that modern vehicles, with more airbags, high-strength steel and sophisticated safety features can be more expensive to repair.
Rates are driven by insurers' actual claim payments, administration costs and the company's cost and loss projections for the near future.
A: As Washington state's insurance regulator, we do our best to hold down insurance costs. But there are things other than accident rates that can affect your auto insurance premiums. Theft rates, auto glass costs, health care costs (for injuries in a crash) can all play a role. So can the fact that modern vehicles, with more airbags, high-strength steel and sophisticated safety features can be more expensive to repair.
Rates are driven by insurers' actual claim payments, administration costs and the company's cost and loss projections for the near future.
Disaster Mental Health Overview
By Rob Yin, Manager, Disaster Mental Health, American Red Cross
The mission of the Red Cross’ Disaster Mental Health (DMH) program is to respond to the psychosocial needs of people affected by disaster, including disaster responders, across the continuum of disaster preparedness, response and recovery. DMH’s work can be both challenging and stressful, but most DMH volunteers will tell you that it is extremely rewarding to provide mental health support to people in their time of greatest need.
DMH workers provide basic care, support and comfort to those experiencing disaster-related stress in addition to approved mental health interventions such as triage, crisis intervention, mental health surveillance, enhanced psychological first aid, secondary assessment, community resilience support, casualty support, advocacy, psychoeducation and referral services.*(Note: please see definitions at the end of this article).
The DMH program is built around a cadre of over 4,000 mental health professionals (with a master’s degree or higher) acting within the scope of their state, independent-level license. These services are designed to supplement, not replace, the community’s mental health services capacity.
There are important differences between day-to-day work as a mental health professional and the delivery of mental health services during a disaster:
If the information about DMH work above sounds interesting…that’s because it is! Become a Red Cross DMH volunteer and be part of the largest, most-highly credentialed DMH response force in the nation. For more information, contact your local Red Cross office (Colonial Virginia Chapter, Williamsburg, VA, 757-253-0228, www.redcross.org ) or contact the Red Cross’ Psychological First Aid Training and/or Foundations of Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Trainings by contacting our region’s Disaster Services Coordinator who serves the lower peninsula, Lisa Mike, at 757-323-4788 or lisa.mike@redcross.org
*Mental Health Intervention Definitions
Individual Psychological Triage:
To identify high risk clients, to prioritize interventions, to make rapid referrals
Mental Health Surveillance for Incident Management:
To deploy to areas with higher ratios of high risk clients, focus on exposure in addition to symptoms, inform state and local mental health agencies of client needs, and monitor worker exposure
Crisis intervention:
To offer immediate, short-term help to individuals who experience an event that produces emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral distress or problems.
Enhanced Psychological First Aid:
To provide basic care, comfort and support to people who are experiencing disaster-related stress
To recognize the signs of stress in clients, co-workers and themselves
Secondary Assessment:
to identify those who are actually demonstrating signs of psychological trauma and to make more informed crisis intervention treatment decisions
Community Resilience Support:
To know who your community is and being able to help and support each other in the face of a common crisis. Community resilience training includes the Neighbor to Neighbor “Coping in Today’s World” curriculum.
Casualty support:
Offered during the immediate aftermath and recovery phase of a disaster when death and serious injuries have occurred
Psychoeducation:
includes providing brochures and information regarding expected stress reactions.
Public health messaging and consultation:
DMH may be asked to work with public affairs to craft messaging that addresses the emotional implications of the disaster and may be called upon to
consult with community agencies and/or disaster responders regarding strategies to address the community’s psychological needs in order to promote resilience and positive coping.
Rob Yin directs the Disaster Mental Health (DMH) program at Red Cross National Headquarters and provides technical and programmatic oversight to more than 4,000 DMH volunteers. Since first joining the Red Cross as a volunteer in 2001, Yin has led DMH teams on 22 national disaster relief operations. Yin is the co-editor of the new Red Cross curriculum, “Coping in Today’s World: Psychological First Aid and Resilience for Families, Friends and Neighbors” and is the co-author of “Self Care for Disaster Mental Health Workers: Force Health Protection Strategies.” He can be contacted at rob.yin@redcross.org.
The mission of the Red Cross’ Disaster Mental Health (DMH) program is to respond to the psychosocial needs of people affected by disaster, including disaster responders, across the continuum of disaster preparedness, response and recovery. DMH’s work can be both challenging and stressful, but most DMH volunteers will tell you that it is extremely rewarding to provide mental health support to people in their time of greatest need.
DMH workers provide basic care, support and comfort to those experiencing disaster-related stress in addition to approved mental health interventions such as triage, crisis intervention, mental health surveillance, enhanced psychological first aid, secondary assessment, community resilience support, casualty support, advocacy, psychoeducation and referral services.*(Note: please see definitions at the end of this article).
The DMH program is built around a cadre of over 4,000 mental health professionals (with a master’s degree or higher) acting within the scope of their state, independent-level license. These services are designed to supplement, not replace, the community’s mental health services capacity.
There are important differences between day-to-day work as a mental health professional and the delivery of mental health services during a disaster:
If the information about DMH work above sounds interesting…that’s because it is! Become a Red Cross DMH volunteer and be part of the largest, most-highly credentialed DMH response force in the nation. For more information, contact your local Red Cross office (Colonial Virginia Chapter, Williamsburg, VA, 757-253-0228, www.redcross.org ) or contact the Red Cross’ Psychological First Aid Training and/or Foundations of Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Trainings by contacting our region’s Disaster Services Coordinator who serves the lower peninsula, Lisa Mike, at 757-323-4788 or lisa.mike@redcross.org
*Mental Health Intervention Definitions
Individual Psychological Triage:
To identify high risk clients, to prioritize interventions, to make rapid referrals
Mental Health Surveillance for Incident Management:
To deploy to areas with higher ratios of high risk clients, focus on exposure in addition to symptoms, inform state and local mental health agencies of client needs, and monitor worker exposure
Crisis intervention:
To offer immediate, short-term help to individuals who experience an event that produces emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral distress or problems.
Enhanced Psychological First Aid:
To provide basic care, comfort and support to people who are experiencing disaster-related stress
To recognize the signs of stress in clients, co-workers and themselves
Secondary Assessment:
to identify those who are actually demonstrating signs of psychological trauma and to make more informed crisis intervention treatment decisions
Community Resilience Support:
To know who your community is and being able to help and support each other in the face of a common crisis. Community resilience training includes the Neighbor to Neighbor “Coping in Today’s World” curriculum.
Casualty support:
Offered during the immediate aftermath and recovery phase of a disaster when death and serious injuries have occurred
Psychoeducation:
includes providing brochures and information regarding expected stress reactions.
Public health messaging and consultation:
DMH may be asked to work with public affairs to craft messaging that addresses the emotional implications of the disaster and may be called upon to
consult with community agencies and/or disaster responders regarding strategies to address the community’s psychological needs in order to promote resilience and positive coping.
Rob Yin directs the Disaster Mental Health (DMH) program at Red Cross National Headquarters and provides technical and programmatic oversight to more than 4,000 DMH volunteers. Since first joining the Red Cross as a volunteer in 2001, Yin has led DMH teams on 22 national disaster relief operations. Yin is the co-editor of the new Red Cross curriculum, “Coping in Today’s World: Psychological First Aid and Resilience for Families, Friends and Neighbors” and is the co-author of “Self Care for Disaster Mental Health Workers: Force Health Protection Strategies.” He can be contacted at rob.yin@redcross.org.
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