subject: Insurance Frauds [print this page] Insurance is a big business, there's no doubt about that. There's large companies that provide insurance policies to millions of people across the country. But any large industry also brings its group of criminals, people who want to abuse the system, or use it to make money in a way that wasn't intended. Insurance fraud has existed ever since there's been insurance, and there's many different insurance frauds out there.
Perhaps the most well known and publicized type of insurance fraud is car insurance, or quite often related to that, liability. The scam is very simple, the idea is to get someone, often an unsuspecting motorist, to do something that will cause damage to your vehicle, then claim benefits from that person's insurance company. A lot of people view this type of scam as a victimless crime, since some large company will foot the bill, but in reality there's always a victim, and it's rarely the large companies. The victim's premiums will surely go up, and if this happens too often, everyone else' premiums will too, to cover the losses.
There's multiple ways these car insurance frauds can be done. The classic way, although quite dangerous, is for someone to just walk across a street when a car is coming. They get hit, and then are brought to a doctor. Quite often, the doctor is part of the scam, and claims severe medical trauma. Then, the insurance company is left with paying a large bill to cover the fake expenses. Other variations include someone slamming the breaks with their break lights off, causing a read-end accident, or someone who waves a car into a passing lane, then an accomplist comes in from that car's blind spot and crashes into it. In cases where damage is done, then the mechanics are usually in on the scam and provide inflated numbers for the repair. There's many different ways this scam is done, but in every case it includes lying to the insurance company, and hoping they pay for fake problems. The companies have become quite good at spotting these scams however, and will often send their own evaluators to make sure the events really occurred that way, and the damage is real.
Health insurance is also quite often targeted by frauds. There's two ways this is usually done. Either someone goes to a doctor and claims a hard to diagnose pain, then hope that the doctor will buy into it, and get money from the insurance company, or the doctor could once again be in on it. These are more rare because a medical professional being caught for insurance fraud can easily lose his license, and face legal charges. Overall, there are thousands of fraud types being committed all over the world, and they are in part responsible for how stringent the companies have become in checking claims to make sure everything happened the way we say it has.
by: Casey Trillbar
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