According to the report made by the National Insurance Crime Bureau or NICB, there were five cities with the most number of owner give-ups, a car insurance fraud scheme delivered by the owner of the cars themselves. These cities are namely, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. And the rate of these crimes seems to increase as New York Fraud Bureau reports a 33% escalation on the number of car insurance fraud cases.
NICB has listed common types of car insurance fraud schemes that are under the category of owner give-ups. The bureaus investigators said that owners of the car purposely damage their cars or even obliterate them to file a claim. There are other different ways on how owners are able to steal from insurance companies. Here is a list of these types of owner give-ups.
Export fraud is a car insurance fraud scheme that the NICB considers as a double win for the perpetrator. The owner will be selling his car to another country through black market and will report his car missing and file a claim. The reason why they said that it was a double win is because they will be paid by the auto insurance company for their claim plus they received profit with the sale of the car overseas.
Auto insurance companies have the 30-day special. If the customer’s vehicle is not found within 30 days from the time it was reported missing, auto insurance companies will settle the claim and approve payment to the customer. After the sum has been paid, the automobile will be found abandoned in some street NICB researchers said.
Another car insurance fraud scheme that the NICB is trying to eradicate is the phantom vehicle. Thieves will produce registration paperwork of a fictional vehicle and will get an auto insurance policy to cover it. After all is done, they will report that the car was stolen and files a claim for it. The NCIB is trying to work with authorized offices to ensure that paperwork submitted to auto insurance companies are genuine and are attached to an existent vehicle.
Lastly, two of the simplest car insurance frauds that were recorded by the National Insurance Crime Bureau would be the Panic Stop and the Intentional Break Slam. This is the intentional hitting of the brake causing the vehicle from behind crash into the car. And because the car in the back will be considered at fault, they will be the ones paying the victims.
Even though there are several schemes, the NCIB have intelligence departments which will handle the deep investigation of such cases. They said that this is to protect insurance companies that are willing to protect citizens as well.
