Insurance Claims Investigation News

Insurance fraud is now estimated to cost insurers £5.2million every day, according to a report published by the Association of British Insurers.

But the figures released by ABI show that insurers are now fighting back against fraudulent claims with £730million of frauds being detected and prevented last year, which is a 30 per cent increase on 2007.

Many fraudulent claims though are still going undetected costing insurers £1.9 billion, this is a 24 per cent rise compared to £1.6billion two years ago.

As a result of these fraudulent claims, every household’s general insurance costs have risen by £44.

Haverhill, Mass — Four firefighters will be suspended for five days after they were videotaped by a private investigator performing strenuous activities while out sick from their city jobs.
The private eye videotaped the firefighters who called in sick in December and shows the firefighters moving furniture, climbing a ladder, and shoveling and plowing snow. One firefighter was filmed at a hockey game and another shopping. Full story

Houston is number 1 in Texas for the number of questionable insurance claims reported and number 4 in the nation for staged accidents.

It is estimated that fraud cost the insurance industry more than $80 billion dollars a year.

Matthew Perrone has published an artilce on this topic through the Associated Press.

Congressional investigators said Wednesday two-thirds of the U.S. health insurance industry used a faulty database that overcharged patients for seeing doctors outside their insurance network, costing Americans billions of dollars in inflated medical bills.

The flawed database is operated by Ingenix, a subsidiary of health insurer UnitedHealth Group, which agreed in January to pay $350 million to settle allegations that it deliberately kept rates low to underpay doctors, driving up expenses for patients.

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, the National Insurance Crime Bureau and other organizations oppose California\’s plan to reclassify most insurance-related crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. In a joint letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the groups said such crimes merit \”serious consequences\” and warned that reducing penalties could lure organized fraud groups to operate in the state.