Auto Insurance Fraud

Don’t Fall Victim to Car Insurance Fraud

With car insurance rates already sky high, the last thing anyone wants are higher rates. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance rates will continue to increase, due in part to insurance fraud. Being a difficult crime to catch, you may not hear a lot about insurance fraud, but thousands of these scams occur every year. By staging a fake accident or causing an innocent driver to crash, auto insurance fraud artists make a living out of deceiving us and insurance companies. Even though they may be causing fake accidents, the damage they cause is very real for everyone else. Just like a normal accident, you could face serious problems if a scammer is able to cause an accident and pin the blame on you. Here are some of the ways victims pay for insurance fraud:

• If you’re found to be responsible for a car accident, your driving record will take a hit immediately. Since your driving record is an important factor in determining insurance rates, you’ll probably be facing higher premiums. For those with past marks on their driving record, you could even risk having your license suspended..
• Even if you aren’t found responsible for a staged car accident, there’s still repair costs and deductibles to pay, as the scammer probably doesn’t even have insurance. It could also cause your premiums to increase.
• Of course, the worst possible outcome of being involved in a staged accident are injuries. Even the most minor of accidents can cause devastating injuries and life-long problems.

Common Scams

The best way to avoid becoming a victim in an insurance scammer’s accident is to familiarize yourself with their tactics. Here’s a look at some of the common ways they use to cause accidents:

• Sometimes these drivers won’t actually cause an accident, but will take advantage of a legitimate one. After a real accident, they have been known to take their car home and purposely damage it even further. Then they’ll claim that damage occurred during the accident.
• By quickly cutting off an innocent driver and slamming on their brakes, a scammer can often force the other driver to rear end them. It may only be a minor accident, but they’ll also fake injuries to collect even more on insurance.
• Another way you can be tricked into causing an accident is when a driver “waves” you into traffic, yielding the right of way to you. Just when you think you’re clear to go, the other driver crashes into you. Then they deny ever waving you in and pin the blame on you.
• Finally, a scammer may set up a staged accident and have a fake witness to see it all go down. Even though the crash wasn’t your fault, the fake witness will claim it was your speeding or running a stop sign that caused it.