This type of fraud entails someone deceiving an insurance company
about a claim involving their personal or commercial motor vehicle. It can
involve giving out misleading information or providing false documentation to
support the claim.
The majority of automotive insurance fraud arrests in Pennsylvania
involve:
• staged auto accidents and false claims of injury
• false reports of stolen vehicles
• false claims that an accident happened after a policy or
coverage was purchased
• false claims for damage that already existed
• claimants who concealed that a person excluded from coverage by
their policy was driving at the time of the accident
Examples
Susan was driving without
insurance and had an accident. When she applied for insurance, she lied. She
said she’d had no accidents. Then she filed a claim saying that her car had
been damaged, lying that the accident happened after the policy took effect.
When Howard purchased his policy,
he admitted his adult son Trevor lived with him but didn’t have a valid
driver’s license. So Trevor was listed on the policy as an “excluded driver.”
Howard’s policy was clear that the insurance company would not pay any claim
for loss or injury if Trevor was operating the vehicle at the time of an
accident. But after Trevor crashed Howard’s car into a telephone pole, Howard
submitted a claim and lied by saying he was driving.
After Mickey’s car was
rear-ended, he didn’t feel so hot. But he exaggerated the extent of his
injuries saying his neck and back hurt and went for medical treatment he knew
he didn’t really need in order to get a larger settlement from the insurance
company.
The transmission on Joan’s SUV
was shot and mechanics told her it would cost $4,000 to fix. She couldn’t sell
the SUV and still owed the bank $2,500 on her auto loan. She gave her keys to a
“friend” to get rid of the SUV for her and reported to the police and her
insurance company that the SUV had been stolen — so the insurance company would
pay off her auto loan.
