Jeff Hewitt is lying about Champagne Pools. He owns the failure of that company 100% and the fraud and indemnity lawsuits are going to land in his lap regardless of his dishonest defense.

What the readers of Right on Daily know is that your intrepid blogger has a day job – I sell insurance including to contractors and have done so since getting a property and casualty license in 1999. (In 1997 I was life and health licensed) I know a few things about Contractor’s Licenses and Insurance issues.

If you want the best in insurance, I am your man.

The California Contractor’s License Board is a wealth of information and has helped me piece together the disaster that has been Jeff Hewitt’s business. Let’s start with the homepage which shows the license as expired: (It is actually revoked for a minimum of 4 years, see the order here effective 10-14-2022) :

• Before the license can be renewed active or reactivated, the corporation’s status at the Secretary of State’s Office must be returned to active.
• The license will need a contractors bond to renew active or reactivate.
• The license will need to replace the qualifying person to renew active or reactivate.
• The license will need to meet the workers compensation requirements to renew active or reactivate.
• PENDING DISCIPLINARY ACTION
  Disciplinary action is pending against this licensee in the form of an accusation. For further information, please call the Case Management Office @ (916) 255-4041

The item in bold is the biggest deal. The other things mean the following, Jeff Hewitt lapsed his license Bond (more on that in a bit), his worker’s comp and the corporation itself is expired with the SOS office. The disciplinary action is a given with the pending lawsuits and complaints against Hewitt.

The item in bold nails Jeff Hewitt to the wall – the State of California is holding Jeff responsible for every bad thing that has happened with Champagne Pools. They have said that Jeff Hewitt can not re-start the license, it will have to be someone different regardless of weather they renew with the SOS and renew their lapsed insurance policies.

See the below violations that caused Hewitt’s license to get revoked:

When I look at other information on Hewitt’s company, I see that he lapsed his worker’s comp in 2018 causing a license suspension back then. This is before he allegedly turned over the flailing business to his son.

The Bond is the second piece that is really easy to understand.

In a future post, we are going to talk about all the lawsuits Jeff Hewitt has lost. Suffice to say two of them are against Champagne Pools going back years. The CSLB website shows that Hewitt posted cash in lieu of a bond. This is highly unusual to tie up $10,000 – $15,000 for years to maintain a license. (The bond amount was raised twice by the legislature in the last 15 years) This suggests that Jeff Hewitt was un-bondable for many years in the past.

Hewitt’s last bond was revoked on 3-5-2021 by Navigators Insurance Company. Navigators is typically a high-risk carrier that is used by brokers like me for tough to place risks. Why did Hewitt have to use Navigators for his last bond? Likely because of claims and risk exposure. In this case, Navigators is also a plaintiff against Hewitt: