Exposing Questionable Claims While Protecting Car Accident Victims
In a report released May 10, 2010, the National Insurance Claim Bureau (NICB) contends that questionable insurance claims that arise out of staged accidents went up 46% (nationally) between 2007 and 2009. “Staged” accidents are car crashes in which a driver intentionally crashes into another (who may be picked completely at random), and afterwards, either alone or joined by passengers, makes inflated claims in regard to injuries suffered and/or the cost of medical treatment for those injuries. According to the NICB, such staged accidents are more likely to occur in urban areas that have a lot of traffic, and in particular in wealthier areas, where more drivers are likely to have good insurance coverage.
The National Insurance Claim Bureau also reports that Illinois ranked 5th in the nation in terms of the number of questionable claims that apparently arose from staged accidents. However, with 433 such questionable claims reported, Illinois was still far behind the states that were ranked first and second (Florida, with 3,006 such claims, and New York, with 1,680).
While staged accidents are a real and important concern, the recent media reports about this criminal practice may lead to some very real, non-staged claims being questioned and even denied. A careful balance has to be struck, between the effort to fight insurance fraud and the need to compensate innocent victims of accidents that lead to serious injuries.
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