A storage-insurance broker is accused of holding onto premiums it was supposed to pass along.
SafeLease Insurance Services has sued Airpark Insurance & Risk Management, an Arizona broker, and its president, Douglas D. Fyfe, alleging the two kept $127,495.96 in premiums owed up the chain. The complaint was filed May 28, 2026, in federal court in Austin, Texas.
The money was supposed to move in a straight line. SafeLease is the agent of record for Obsidian Specialty Insurance Company, the carrier behind a self-storage program sponsored by a nonparty, Storage Protectors. Airpark sat in the middle as the producing broker, and its job, according to the complaint, was to collect premiums from storage operators and send them to SafeLease in Austin, which would then pay the carrier.
The policy set the timing. Premium was "payable by bordereaux on the 7th day of the subsequent month in which the cover[age] was granted," the filing says - a bordereaux being the running schedule brokers use to report premiums owed.
The complaint breaks the shortfall into three pieces. An October 2025 invoice left $23,153.91 unpaid as of April 23, 2026. A November 2025 invoice for $101,512.13 went unpaid in full. A final true-up added $2,829.92. SafeLease calls the combined $127,495.96 the "Unremitted Premium."
For carriers and claims professionals, the heart of the case is premium held in trust. SafeLease alleges that premiums a producer collects are not the producer's money - they are "collected in a fiduciary capacity for the benefit of the insurer (and its agent of record) and must be promptly accounted for and remitted." Those funds should have stayed segregated from Airpark's operating account, the complaint says.
That framing is why one email matters. According to the complaint, on April 21, 2026, Fyfe emailed SafeLease's chief executive to say Airpark had "advised [its] accounting department" to send the funds and that the funds had been sent "out of agency funds." SafeLease alleges that statement was made "with knowledge that no such remittance had occurred or, alternatively, with reckless disregard for whether it had occurred." The "agency funds" wording cuts to the dispute, the filing says: the money should have been sitting segregated as trust premium, not coming from the broker's own account.
SafeLease brings four counts - breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and unjust enrichment. It cites Arizona producer law, alleging that withholding or converting money received in the course of insurance business is prohibited under A.R.S. § 20-295(A)(4).
The complaint names Fyfe personally, alleging he "personally and directly participated in, directed, and ratified the conduct alleged herein" and is personally liable alongside the agency. SafeLease is seeking the full amount, interest, attorneys' fees, exemplary damages, an accounting and a constructive trust over any premium still in the defendants' hands.
The point for the trade is the trust-fund rule itself: under SafeLease's theory, collected premium is never the broker's to spend - and here that argument has landed on a named, licensed producer.
These are allegations only, untested in court. As of the filing, Airpark and Fyfe had not responded to the complaint, and no court had ruled on any of the claims.
