GEICO says a New York chiropractor posed as the owner of two practices that were secretly run by unlicensed operators. It wants $1.27 million back.
In a complaint filed June 24, 2026, in federal court in Brooklyn, the insurer accused the chiropractor of serving as the nominal owner of two chiropractic practices that GEICO alleges were controlled behind the scenes by unlicensed laypersons. The two practices are named alongside ten unidentified "John Doe" defendants.
The issue for claims professionals is straightforward. GEICO alleges it paid for treatment that was medically unnecessary, useless, or billed through a practice that had no legal right to collect.
New York's No-Fault system lets crash victims hand their benefits - up to $50,000 each - to providers, who bill insurers directly. The law has a string attached: only a practice genuinely owned by a licensed professional can collect. According to the complaint, the chiropractor "agreed to cede all true ownership and control over the PC Defendants and would falsely pose as the owner," while unlicensed managers ran the business.
That ownership point is central to GEICO's case. The complaint relies on a 2005 ruling, State Farm v. Mallela, in which New York's highest court said insurers can look past a "facially-valid license" to test whether a provider followed licensing rules - and that those who didn't can't collect.
The filing then lists the services GEICO alleges were not reimbursable. It alleges months of identical chiropractic adjustments that never changed regardless of how patients responded. It alleges charges for "Covid cleaning" billed mostly after the state moved to end its pandemic emergency. And it alleges nerve tests that were either billed across more nerves and limbs than guidance recommends or, in the case of so-called s-NCT testing, "medically useless" - pointing to a federal Medicare finding that the tests aren't reasonable or necessary for the conditions claimed. GEICO says those s-NCT tests were billed at $446.86 a charge under a code meant for far more extensive studies.
The complaint also describes patterns its investigators flagged. It alleges "revolving door" clinics that, at two addresses alone, generated billing from more than seventy supposedly different providers. And it alleges that checks to one of the practices from a now-defunct law firm were cashed in New Jersey by an individual who, according to records GEICO cites, "walked out of Cambridge Clarendon with over $35 million in cash."
The complaint also points to an earlier matter. It alleges that a man identified in the filing as the manager of one of the practices "was previously named as a defendant in a No-Fault insurance fraud lawsuit." That earlier case is separate. The manager is not a named defendant in GEICO's current suit, and the doctor whose affidavit GEICO quotes from the older case is not part of this one either.
GEICO is asking for its money back, treble damages under federal racketeering law, and a ruling that it owes nothing on more than $2.39 million in pending claims.
The complaint's central theory is one of ownership: that if a billing entity was never legitimately owned by a licensed professional, the right to collect can fail across the board.
None of it has been tested in court, and no judge has ruled. For now, these are allegations.
