Florida Continues to See High Levels of Auto-Insurance Fraud

Insurance companies and the police have increasingly been working together to crack down on staged accidents through which individuals can make false claims and collect millions in undeserved funds. Recent arrests in Florida highlight how pervasive the problem is within the industry and within Florida specifically (the state with the highest level of staged accidents):

Late last week, three employees of the Fort Myers Chiropractic Center were charged with insurance fraud. The investigation alleges the three employees forged over $10,000 worth of patient treatment at the center.  The dates of the alleged patient treatments conflicted with the six-week period where the patient was actually in jail for unrelated charges.

When the economic outlook is sour, many individuals without jobs or hope may turn to defrauding their insurers in order to make a few extra dollars. Florida, with an unemployment rate of over 12% (some economists have placed it as high as 20%), is especially vulnerable to these type of schemes. The reported number of staged accidents has increased over 50% from the last year alone. Beyond "staged accidents," there are various other ways in which individuals are stealing from insurers: vehicle ditching, whereby individuals abandoned, reported stolen or burned their vehicles in order to get out of payments; solicitation of unnecessary auto windshield repairs; reported damaged due to natural disasters.