Minnich under fire by past clients

County commission candidate answers

NEWPORT – Two past clients of Pend Oreille County commission candidate Steve Minnich contacted The Miner to say Minnich tried to take advantage of them when he was selling insurance. After hiring attorneys, both the dissatisfied Minninch clients did get their money back.

Hailey Oles of Spokane told The Miner Minnich tried to financially take advantage of her when her husband died at age 27 two years ago, in late 2022. She said that Minnich, who she described as “my husband’s life insurance facilitator,” said that her husband wanted to make sure she was investing the money properly and “that Steve was the guy who could help me.”

She signed a contract in February 2023 for a “Conditionally Refundable Agent Fee – Memorandum of Understanding and Agent Engagement” with Steve Haroldson Minnich doing business as TrueWealth Financial, LLC in which she would pay him $5,000. She and Minnich were to engage in the TrueWealth Transformer Experience, as outlined in the memo of understanding.

Oles also invested about $16,000 with Minnich for a storage facility, money Minnich said he returned within 48 hours of her asking for it back.

“I never touched her money. It went directly to the closing agent and then directly back to her bank account,” Minnich said.

Oles was not required to contract with him to receive the death benefit on the insurance policy, Minnich says. He says she used the benefit to buy a new house. He said she was dealing with sadness and depression following her husband’s death.

“In her mind’s eye she had a warped view of what really happened,” Minnich said in an email. Oles made an online complaint with the Washington Office of Insurance Commissioner, he said. He said her online complaint was unsubstantiated and made defamatory claims against him. He said he is awaiting a report from the OIC on the matter, but expects to be exonerated.

“I made sure she got all her money back and we parted ways,” he said. “Hailey is in a much better life situation now because her husband had the foresight to plan for the unplanned.”

Louise Bates also wrote The Miner that she was dissatisfied with her insurance dealings with Minnich.

“Hi, Someone sent me a notice about Steve running for office and information on the fines from the State Insurance Commissioner. Have you done any research into that?” Bates wrote. She sent a link to Norm Smith’s Political Circus Facebook page, where Smith had made a video of various insurance commissioner and other regulatory documents about Minnich.

She said she was one of the victims mentioned in a story in the Sept. 19 Selkirk Sun newspaper headlined “Insurance complaints in candidate Minnich’s past.” She had a different last name then and is referred to in the story by the initials FLR.

Bates said Minnich pretended to be a financial advisor and sold her insurance products in Idaho, even though she was a Washington resident. She said Minnich met her in Priest River to have her sign for the policy.

Minnich told The Miner he has never claimed to be a financial advisor.

“I have never referred to myself as a financial advisor with any client ever either verbally or in writing,” Minnich said. “I simply used the name of my company ‘TrueWealth Financial Advisors’ in the salutation of my emails back in 2012.”

Bates said that despite Minnich knowing she was unmarried with no children, sold her a $1 million life insurance product. She ended up buying another $1 million life insurance policy from Minnich’s “business coach” at the time Charles “Chuck” Oliver.

Bates said she couldn’t afford the $110,000 annual premiums on the two policies. She said she thought Minnich would cancel the policy he sold her. Minnich said he expected her to cancel it.

Minnich said Bates, a former Spokane bank vice president, was an accredited investor, meaning she had a deeper understanding of financial matters than most. He said more than three years after she bought the policies, she made a complaint to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, past the statute of limitations.

The complaint ended with Minnich paying a $1,500 fine, he said. Bates got all her premiums back.