Former SA insurance broker to serve jail time
The former boss of a South Australian insurance company who stole more than $400,000 from clients is being sent to jail.
Former director of insurance firm Horsell International, Craig Horsell, must serve a previously suspended three-year prison sentence after breaching the conditions of his release by committing another crime.
Last week, Judge Ian Press of the District Court of South Australia revoked Horsell’s release order imposed on him following a 2013 conviction for dishonestly using his position contrary to the Corporations Act.
Horsell pleaded guilty in 2013 to three charges of dishonestly using his position as a director of an insurance brokerage business after he diverted 89 client insurance premium payments totalling $414,000 into his personal bank account over three years from 2007 to 2010.
At the time, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and fined $75,000, but the court ordered his release and required he be of good behaviour for three years.
On July 9, 2026, Horsell was found to have breached the good behaviour order by deceiving a bank between May 2015 and December 2018. The court heard he had applied for an ANZ credit card and a bank loan in the name of his cousin, Leigh Horsell, that led to a loss of $74,000 to the bank.
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This led to the District Court decision to activate the previously suspended three-year sentence of imprisonment.
Press also imposed a two-year, eight-month and ten-day prison sentence for the bank deception offence, imposing a non-parole period of one year and seven months.
The sentences will be served cumulatively, with Horsell’s total effective prison sentence being three years, eight months and 10 days.
ASIC chair Sarah Court said the latest outcome “marks the end of a very sorry and long-running chapter for the clients who placed their trust in Mr Horsell many years ago”.
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In sentencing, District Court Judge Press said the “release order did not deter you and it also suggests your deception of the bank was not a momentary lapse of judgment in a moment of weakness”.
“It tends to reveal a willingness on your part to ignore responsibilities when they are inconvenient for you,” Press said.
“It is also, regrettably, consistent with your actions when you offended in 2007 … when you showed a willingness to disregard the financial wellbeing of others if it suited your purposes.”
Press said the amount of time since Horsell’s offending was relevant, but “I do not consider that it is of significant weight”.
Horsell’s first offending dated back to between 2007 and 2010 when he diverted 89 client insurance premium payments totalling $414,000 into his personal bank account.
Horsell – the son of the founder of the company – in an attempt to conceal the fraud, falsified bank statements and cancelled clients’ insurance policies, leaving some clients without insurance cover.
While the affected policies were replaced or reinstated and losses repaid, the former sentencing judge Rafo Soulio in 2013 described Horsell’s conduct as “a significant breach of trust”.
ASIC permanently banned Horsell from providing financial services in January 2012 following an ASIC investigation into his conduct while acting as a director of an insurance business.
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