Complaint Review: Number 1 Insurance Marketing Services - Huntington Beach California

Having been an employee of Number 1 Insurance in Huntington Beach for many years, I know the inside scoop on everything that goes on in this place and this is why I would have to say it is the absolute worst place to work and the sole reason being is due to it’s owner’s corrupt nature, Michael Mukaled.

Number 1 Insurance is an insurance agency and is supposed to be a professional office environment, but go work there one day and you will realize it is run like an office boot camp.  It is ridiculous.  The owner is always at the office micro managing your every move.  When you are hired you sign a completely one-sided employee handbook/contract that the owner removed anything that could benefit employees (anything pertaining to employee rights, health benefits, overtime, vacations, etc).  He will not give you a copy once you sign it so don’t even ask.  Next thing, that will happen, is he will assign you two breaks and a lunch period.  Your lunch is 30 minutes no matter what number of hours you work and how long you work there, and he watches you to make sure you go on each break and lunch at your specific time, if you do not or you take an extra 5 minutes, he will make drama, sit you in a long meeting and write you up.

Everything and I mean everything you do on your office computer is monitored.  I know this as a fact.  He has a computer monitoring program on each computer, and the reason the owner is at the office every day is so he can sit there and scroll through what everyone is doing all day.  You are not allowed to check your personal emails, Facebook, or log on to any website that is not work related, do this and he will bring you in for another long meeting, show you a screenshot print out of what site you logged into and write you up. 

Did I mention, he keeps a file for each employee and in that file, anything you do that he can use against you is kept in it.  You are probably thinking, what can he use against you, I will get to that.

All the promises this guy makes when first interviewing you soon become obvious BS to you in your first week of working there.  You will realize that the owner is money hungry and can careless about you, any employee and quite honestly anyone that is not his family.  He does not advance or raise anyone’s pay.  He will never pay for health insurance, dental, vacation, 401, do not even dream of it.  On top of that, if you are hired as an insurance agent, you will work un-paid overtime and be given a 1099 even though you are not treated like a true 1099 since you are not allowed to leave the office period, only to use the bathroom and if you leave in and out “too many” times according to the owner, he will sit you down and hassle you.  Why does he prefer to hire you as 1099, it is obvious to a corrupt business owner like Michael, he writes off your entire salary and you get no social security benefit and no unemployment benefit and you have to pay taxes based on your entire pay.

Now, I did mention, he’s money hungry didn’t I.  There is no limit to Michael’s greed.  He will direct his agent’s and customer service representatives to charge broker fees even on policies and services they are not allowed to by the department of insurance.  For instance, he is directly appointed with Hartford Insurance, Allied Insurance, Safeco and few others.  By being directly appointed, the agency receives a higher commission and greater access as opposed to working with a direct agent for access to these companies.  Because of the benefits of being directly appointed, the companies and the department of insurance do not allow an agency to charge a fee when writing a policy with these companies and 90% of hones agencies do not.  Michael does not feel the rules apply to him.  He makes his agents charge fees for new policies and on top of that he makes his auto agents and reps charge bogus “endorsement” fees for adding a driver, removing a vehicle, small petite things.  Basically if you were a customer and sold your car and called Number 1 to remove your vehicle from your insurance policy, on direct order from Michael, you will be charged a $75 fee.  That is unheard of.  Not to mention, that Michael only obtained most of these direct appointments through deception and fabrication.  He had fabricated reports that claim he has more policies than he really does and used those reports to obtain direct appointments to companies he should not dream of having access to.

Now for the business customers, Michael is ruthless, he charges ridiculous broker fees, the most ever heard of.  He has charged a broker fee of $10,000 for one policy! The customers are never informed of these fees, they are hidden in fine print and when they are asked about the fee, it is usually too late because Michael purposely has them sign the disclosures after the policy is written. He gave orders to charge such ridiculous fees in the thousands to people he called close friends, even when they were from his home country, the guy has no shame.

If you have the unfortunate of working here, you will find out I tell not even one lie.  Never in my life did I see an employer have employees sign and not give them copies of what they sign.  He has his agents sign faulty non-competes to try and intimidate them not to work in insurance.  little does he understand those agreements are not upheld in California, but even when he was told this, he insisted on getting them signed as a means of intimidation against anyone ignorant enough not to understand they are not legal. 

Which brings me to the ultimate scheme against employees by Michael, unemployment.  Michael purposely keeps anything he can use that is incriminating on his employees.  Let’s say, Jackie was late to work, he will write her up, even if she does a great job and this is her first time late.  Than in the future, should she decide to quit or he decide to fire her, this write up will come handy for him.  How you ask?  Well if she dares go to unemployment, and I have seen this everytime.  Michael gets so upset and mocks anyone that goes on unemployment after working for him.  He takes it so personal and makes it a vendetta to make sure he does whatever it takes to have them denied.  So for Jackie’s case he will write a nasty letter about her, even if she was a great employee, and send it to unemployment with any and all incriminating information including the write up and do his best to get her denied.   Another tactic Michael employs which I have never seen anywhere either is this.  If he wants to fire you, he purposely will make your working conditions terrible, he will give you more work than you can handle, hassle you about it on purpose, step up his micro management to become unbearable to force you to “quit.” Think about that, why does he force “you” to quit rather than just be a normal boss and fire you.  Well, if you quit you are not entitled to unemployment, and he makes sure to have you sign that you “voluntarily resigned for personal reasons,” he will have the letter drafted for you, you sign and get no copy.

That’s not even where it stops.  Let’s suppose you worked and dedicated years to this clown, and left the company on good terms.  Do you think that will grant you a good spot with Michael, NO!  He is really evil I hate to say.  If any company calls Michael for a reference on your past employment, he will never take the call, they all go to voicemail.  That is how much he hates employees.  Believe me when I say I know, this is all coming from the inside.

Michael is really a disgrace to Arab business owners.  He embodies the worst of all stereotypes.  He is cheap, does not appreciate the work of women or women in general and is a thief.   The only time he fired someone was an overweight women because he found out she had complained about him to others and called him a “megalomaniac.” He truly is a megalomaniac.  He used to call this women a “cow.” I have heard this man refer to black individuals with the Nword, when they come apply, he laughs when they leave and tosses their application in the trash.  When I say this man is cheap, I mean cheap.  When he interviews a new employee, he tries to squeeze them in to the absolute lowest pay they are willing to start at.  Working with other insurance professionals, he tries to squeeze them for their fees and con often paying less than what anyone else pays.  He is really an unintelligent business man, he thinks it is smart to be this way, but all it is doing is destroying his agency and that agency is going down slowly but surely.

Friendly work environment, hardly right!  The company has had many complaints sent to the department of insurance, BBB, Yelp and Yahoo.  Michael does everything he can to rebuttal all and get the truth removed, but a few Yelps reviews have survived and everyone who has worked here and gone (there are many as they have a great deal of turn over) knows the truth.  Tell your story.