Insurance: was it a real accident?
The latest report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) shows that staged accident questionable claims (QC) increased 46 percent between 2007 and 2009.
Additionally, the ratio of staged accident QCs to overall bodily injury (BI) and personal injury protection (PIP) claims has increased over this period while the total number of BI and PIP claims has declined.
The top five states that generated the most staged accident QCs were: (1) Florida, 3,006; (2) New York, 1,680; (3) California, 1,619; (4) Texas, 792; and (5) Illinois, 433.
The five cities that generated the most staged accident QCs were: (1) New York City, 1,304; (2) Tampa, 562; (3) Miami, 511; (4) Orlando, 422; and (5) Houston, 376.
Staged accidents are dangerous criminal events that target innocent drivers with increasingly bold schemes aimed at defrauding insurance companies out of millions of dollars. Unless someone becomes suspicious, many of these staged accidents go undetected. NICB has created a series of videos demonstrating some of the most common types of staged accidents, says the USA's National Insurance Crime Bureau.
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