INSURANCE

State Seizes Insurance Businesses: The Insurance Department seized a Fremont-based insurance agency and related businesses, accusing their two principals of health insurance fraud. Stoddard Insurance Administration and other businesses run by J. Paul Stoddard and John Anton Berg were placed under court-ordered conservation, the department said in a statement. The department said it had received 135 consumer complaints against the firms; many policyholders complained that when they filed a claim, they would be informed that their policy had lapsed or there was no record of their having been insured. While the department said the extent of the fraud is undetermined, investigators discovered evidence that the administrators had collected nearly $3 million in the last two years and had about 2,500 policyholders served through the two Stoddard offices in Fremont and Orange.