Protection Against Insurance Scams
Opportunism is an age-old happenstance in the world. It has existed since the first men knew how to use others to their own advantage. This is particularly common especially in this world where scams could earn them the biggest dough they could get.
In the world of car insurance, there are also staged car accidents that, most often than not, are part of a car insurance fraud. These will not only result in the insured party paying higher premiums because of the acquisition of costlier claims, it could also cause the loss of human lives. In line with this, it really is best for a person to learn about what insurance fraud is all about and what could be done to protect yourself as well as your family from it.
Usually, a lot of car insurance scams that were hard to detect have been instigated by a number of organized crime groups. These scams are becoming especially numerous because of modern technology.
There are a lot of ways to prevent yourself from being victimized by these scams, though, whether they are from crime groups or just from one individual. The best weapon is being aware of the types of scams being utilized nowadays.
There are actually many types of car accidents that are just setups. These could range from cars stopping deliberately in front of you to cause a rear-end collision to drivers pretending helpfulness when, in fact, they are in the process of causing a vehicular accident that could end up looking like the fault of the innocent driver. There are even scams that involve very dependable and trustworthy-looking people like lawyers and doctors.
To avoid being the next victim, it is best to arm yourself about fraud protection through education. Here are the common auto insurance scams that one should watch out for:
Rear-end collisions that are staged
A driver on the scam quickly gets in front of an unsuspecting driver and slams on his brakes in a split second, causing a collision that could more or less jolt the driver. The innocent driver would have to pay an asked amount for vehicle damages. More often than not, the scam driver fakes some medical injuries so he could collect more money from the aggrieved party.
Additional Damage
This happens when a scam driver goes to another location and causes damages that are more extensive than the damage incurred during the accident that originally happened. This is to collect more from the driver that he had a collision with. This kind of scam is done whether the accident was staged or not.
Faked Help
This driver usually waves into traffic an unsuspecting driver, who, in the end, will never know what hit him. And once he is within flow of traffic, the scam driver crashes into him, causing enough damage to make him wince and empty his pockets. During the filing of claims, this scam driver is very effective in denying that he waved the innocent driver in. Another “helpful” scam is when somebody offers to help a driver, who figured in an accident, in finding a repair shop, a lawyer’s office, or a medical clinic. In cases like these, it is most possible that everyone in the whole scenario has their own role to play in the scam. The shop would ask for exorbitant prices while the lawyer and the doctor found in their respective offices would also lie through their teeth to get more money from the insurance company.
by Maria-Goldsmith 19 years ago