Hole-In-Won, Inc. - Insurer

[Tom King]

There are several companies out there who insure hole-in-one and putting contest prizes.  Many times local insurance agencies will insure these events.  A lot of the folk I've worked with on tournaments have bought insurance from a vendor called "Hole-in-Won.com". 

I was stunned tonight when I saw a TV news story about this company pop up on the 11 o'clock news.  Apparently the State Insurance Committee of Washington conducted a sting with the cooperation of several local charities that netted 5 federal indictments against 54 year-old Kevin Kolenda of Connecticut and his company Hole-in-Won.com. 

Apparently the company sells a lot of insurance, but doesn't pay off when golfers actually do land a hole-in-won.  So far, either the charity gets stuck paying off the golfer or, in most cases, the golfer lets the charity slide when they are told about the fraud. 

Still it hurts a tournament's reputation when it fails to pay off prizes like that. If you've had dealing with Hole-in-Won, we'd like to know if there were any problems.  Or let us know if you've had trouble with other vendors.  I don't want to open this up for a bash-the-vendor fest and if we can keep it calm and check out the stories, I don't have any problem posting a warning regarding bad faith vendors.

If we'd done a better job of getting the word out about Hole-in-Won, we wouldn't have had 3 unhappy Washington golfers, not to mention who knows how many in other states.

Here's a link to the story in The Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2018979743.html