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Pen. Code, § 548 · Chapter 10. Crimes Against Insured Property and Insurers

Pen. Code, § 548

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Every person who willfully injures, destroys, secretes, abandons, or disposes of any property which at the time is insured against loss or damage by theft, or embezzlement, or any casualty with intent to defraud or prejudice the insurer, whether the property is the property or in the possession of that person or any other person, is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for two, three, or five years and by a fine not exceeding fifty thousand dollars ($50,000).

For purposes of this section, “casualty” does not include fire.

(b) Any person who violates subdivision (a) and who has a prior conviction of the offense set forth in that subdivision, in Section 550 of this code, or in former Section 556 or former Section 1871.1 of the Insurance Code, shall receive a two-year enhancement for each prior conviction in addition to the sentence provided under subdivision (a). The existence of any fact which would subject a person to a penalty enhancement shall be alleged in the information or indictment and either admitted by the defendant in open court, or found to be true by the jury trying the issue of guilt or by the court where guilt is established by plea of guilty or nolo contendere or by trial by the court sitting without a jury.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 15, Sec. 390. (AB 109) Effective April 4, 2011. Operative October 1, 2011, by Sec. 636 of Ch. 15, as amended by Stats. 2011, Ch. 39, Sec. 68.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=548.
Text hash
sha256 b466497711b73e40b4af885f744e76d8e2abec26bc2d8206710f1259b190ed0a
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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