Why not set yourself on fire?
By: Jack Nerad for Driving Today
Date: 2005-07-08
Humans are strange animals. And they do really stupid things in failed attempts to cheat insurance companies out of money. That's the conclusion you have to draw after viewing the files of Progressive Insurance fraud investigator Ray Albertini. Of course, insurance fraud is no laughing matter. It's a serious crime that costs consumers a lot of money. The National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates that property and casualty insurers pay more than $30 billion a year in bogus claims, and those additional costs are generally passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.
"People think of insurance fraud as a victimless crime when, in fact, honest policyholders end up being victimized," said Albertini, Progressive's national director of special investigations. "Most insurance companies base their rates on the cost of doing business. When costs go up because of fraudulent claims, other customers end up paying the price. People need to be aware of fraud and be willing to report it when they suspect it."
Some criminals might think they're being clever when they try to cheat insurance companies, but often they end up making mistakes that get them caught, injured and sometimes even killed. While some offenders who commit fraud are never brought to justice, others, as Albertini's files suggest, seem to be begging to be apprehended. Consider if you will:
The ex post facto purchase
One fairly common type of insurance fraud people commit is buying coverage after their car has been damaged. This after-the-fact purchase of insurance can be difficult to prove, but some perpetrators have had the audacity to buy coverage literally from the scene of the accident itself. Take the case of the motorcyclist who wiped out and, while lying on the side of the road with a ruptured spleen, had the presence of mind to call an insurance company to buy coverage. What he didn't know was that a witness who saw the accident also heard him make the call.
In another case, a couple's car caught on fire. With the car in flames, the husband got on the phone with the insurance company to buy a policy, but the fraud was uncovered when his wife was overheard yelling in the background that the car was about to explode.
Playing with fire
Remember the old saying about playing with fire? Well, we doubt that the brilliant criminals who hatched the following fraud scheme expected to get burned, but they did. Figuring the easiest and quickest way to collect insurance money was to destroy his car by setting it on fire, the car's owner hired two brothers to torch his ride. But he apparently hired the mentally deficient. The two brothers doused the vehicle with gasoline, and to make sure the vehicle would be completely destroyed, they decided to throw in a pipe bomb. The plan immediately went awry because when the bomb exploded, it set one of the men on fire. He was likely killed instantly from the explosion, but his brother, not realizing that his brother had died, rushed to extinguish the flames and ended up catching fire himself. He ran toward a nearby highway for help and flagged down a state trooper who had come to investigate the black cloud of smoke. The man told the trooper what he and his brother had done and then, like his brother, expired from his injuries.
What's wrong with this picture?
A customer said some parts were stolen from his car, and to support his claim, he submitted some invoices along with Polaroid photos. While the invoices looked trumped up, at first blush the photos looked pretty good, but on closer inspection something seemed a little odd about them. After more study, investigators realized the guy had taken extreme closeups of a toy car that was the same color and make of his actual car. The customer eventually admitted he took photos of the toy car and tried to pass them off as photos of his actual vehicle. The lesson: don't do that.
Miracle cure
A passenger riding in the car of an insured driver was injured in a crash and needed chiropractic treatment. The insurance company had no problem with that and covered the cost of the treatments. However, sometime before completing the prescribed series of doctor visits, the injured passenger died of unrelated, natural causes. Now, you'd think that a person who is deceased would no longer benefit from a doctor's care, but evidently, the chiropractor thought otherwise. He continued to bill for treatment for a full month after his patient's death.
Going the extra mile
A woman decided to take her boyfriend's motorcycle for a ride, but, unfortunately, she didn't know how to drive a motorcycle and crashed it. Luckily, she wasn't injured. But her boyfriend, afraid his insurance wouldn't cover the damage to his motorcycle because his girlfriend wasn't listed as a driver on his policy, decided to pretend that he had crashed the motorcycle. His thoughts weren't unique, but this particular perpetrator took the whole thing to a new level. He figured he needed some injuries to make his story of crashing the bike credible, so he tied himself to the back of a truck and asked a friend to drag him around a little bit to produce the "road rash" he would have gotten from the purported motorcycle wreck. That part of the plan worked, because he received some authentic-looking injuries. But he didn't count on his girlfriend's big mouth. She told investigators that she crashed the motorcycle, so his physical pain became financial and psychic as well.
"People may laugh at some of these incidents, but what they need to realize is that people who commit fraud are taking money out of everyone else's pockets," said Progressive's Albertini.
What can you do about it? Well, if you become aware of or suspect fraudulent activity you can report it anonymously to the National Insurance Crime Bureau at 800-TEL-NICB (800-835-6422). That simple phone call can help us all.
---Driving Today Managing Editor Jack R. Nerad also writes frequently on true crime, and has written a book called Fatal Photographs, detailing an automotive-related murder case.
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