PA Insurance Fraud Prevention Authority: Automotive Insurance Fraud

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

Here are a few typical scenarios to illustrate some of the different ways automotive insurance fraud can be committed:

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.