OCR Text |
Show 4 lawyers, are usually essential in attesting to trumped-u- p injuries and submitting wildly exaggerated bills to Inflate settlements. An investigation of fraud rings in the New York area, which so far has resulted In license revocations for more than a dozen doctors and disbarment of about 30 attorneys, is revealing numerous instances In which $10 doctor visits rA j . t - ' - : m The fake doctor also is invaluable to the type of chiseler who actually troubles insurance companies more than the prof essional faker. This is the ordinary guy your neighbor, perhaps who wouldn't filch from his son's piggybank but who tries to turn a legitimate accident into a key to .... wit., j- m is.1 Fort Knox. Such attempts are almost as common as acci- -. dents themselves, insurance men say. "Otherwise- -, honest people seem to don a new ethical shirt when they deal with an insurance company," explains one claims investigator. "They feel ,an insurance corporation is open game if they can cheat without getting caught" Perhaps ' V ; I' a driver has his first collision in 20 by some quirk of logic he reasons that the insurance company owes him something for all the time he was accident-freOr maybe L..- - e. he's an accident repeater, tired of shelling out the $100 deductible. With the help of a cooperative doctor and a garage owner, he pads his medical and repair bills, and his misfortune becomes a thing of Drofit. Such a man, of course, rarely classes himself with professional looters but he should, and so should you. While individually his exaggerated claim mav be a mere dron in the fraud hiwlref -i- By CHARLES and BONNIE REMSBERG was foif four or more conspirators to pull their car ahead of an unwary driver who tended to follow closely or who had been drinking, then to slam to a stop so suddenly that the victim's car crashed into them. Feigning "invisible" neck and back injuries they' would collect insurance settlements ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. Investigators estimate the rings fleeced the insurance-buying public of nearly $1 million and inflicted untold injury and damage on victims. Another , popular gimmick is for pedestrian fakers to walk into the side of moving cars or fall behind trucks that are backing out of loading zones. On the basis of injuries self -- inflicted with razor blades or cheese graters, the "victims" collect for being "knocked down." Personal injuries are the true "bonanza" in insurance racketeering. The increasing; proclivity of juries to award huge sums for personal inof line with what the juriessometimes far-o-ut facts warrant has made insurance companies reluctant to go to court "They now manage to avoid litigation nine times out of 10 by reaching compromise settlements with claimants," says Thomas Reynolds, general manager of the Illinois Insurance Information Service. ; ; iccident fakers thrive on this willingness to "settle quickly, usually punctuating injury com-- plaints with threats to sue. And according to the Insurance Information Institute, they .undoubtedly are greatly to blame for the fact that underwriters have gone in the red on bodily-injur- y liability policies every year but two since 1951. Some persons: will go "to frightening extremes icf collect bodily-injur- y d Missouri, a ring once operated in which accomplices amputated arms, inflicted beatings with rubber hoses, and mutilated each other with razors. Most claimants, however, prefer to fake injuries or accidents or even operate entirely on paper. a and aspirant city For example, who also happened to be an mayor, councilman in- surance adjuster, set up one lucrative system in , Youngstown, Ohio. Using aliases, he wrote policies for fictitious persons, then drafted injury claims against them on the- basis of fabricated accidents Settlements were mailed to various bank accounts he maintained under the assumed names. Before long he had five secretaries to handle the bookkeeping. His biggest-phanto- m crash was worth $60,000 and allegedly involved four cars carrying nine passengers; lesserones totaled some $200,000. Like a multitude of other claims swindlers, this man had the help of an unscrupulous doctor. Such physicians, often working closely with unethical - nsurance authorities saytha1r,whenthe"patteni is multiplied by the number of times it occurs, the deceit of "honest" persons actually looms more extensive than that of outright swindlers! Fully aware of the growing fraud bite, insurance companies are not standing by idly. Many are beefing up investigative staffs, examining all claims more closely, and urging changes in judicial procedure designed to" expose exagger-The claims bureau of the Association pf Casualty and Surety Companies maintains an inart-is- ts creasingly successful snare for false-claian index which classifies and permanently claim reported. catalogs every personal-injur-y . This index puts agents on the trail of claimants whose accidents or frequency of claims hints of fraud. The system is designed so that a faker often finds it impossible to'escape detection even by using aliases and moving from city to city; Can you help the bureau' and other investigative agencies stamp out the fraud racket? Yes, authorities say. . First, you can be honest in your own claims, realizing that in the long run you'll pay for deceit through higher insurance costs. Also, you can report anyone you know who is chiseling or ms . anyone who offers you dubious deals. And- - finally, if you are involved in an accident that seems rigged or in whicji the other parties seem overly anxious for a quick settlement, you can insist that your insurance company delay any claims payment, pending a thorough investigation. Such insistence mav keen the next victim of these modern highway robbers. Family Weekly, May 13, 1962 |