Insurance fraud or false insurance claimsare insurance claims filed with the intent to defraud an insurance provider.
In the United States insurance fraud is estimated to cost US$875 per person per year with The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimating the loss to be $80 billion per year and Medicare estimating fraud in its system costs the government $179 billion per year.
Insurance fraud hurts the average person in two ways. First, all fraud costs, including losses, investigations, etc., are paid for by the insured through higher premiums, or, in the case of government insurance like Medicare, in higher taxes. Second, if a particular individual is the target for the fraud, they have costs such as deductible payments, loss of property use, etc., as well as higher premiums from the claim loss and the potential for denial of future coverage.
Some memorable examples of insurance fraud include the following:
- Former British Government minister John Stonehouse went missing in 1974 from a beach in Miami. He was discovered living under an assumed name in Australia.
- Derek Nicholson and Nikole Nagle were accused of attempting to defraud a life insurance company for $1 million after Mr Nicholson apparently went missing in New Jersey in July 2003 and Ms Nagle reported him missing and made a claim on the policy.
- Gaylan Sweet of San Diego, California, who was a claims adjuster for Allstate Insurance set up a scheme in 2002 that included non-existent children who were killed in hit-and-run auto accidents at non-existent intersections by phantom drunk drivers. Sweet and two others (who posed as the parents of the non-existent children) pocketed $710,000 before being caught by Allstate.
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