Clients Commiting Insurance Fraud.

[bill777]

When i tried to approach Unitrin for an appointment they told me that most carriers including them have stopped appointing agents in my area due to a lot of insurance fraud commiting by a lot of people this year and the carriers don't want to lose more money.

So far things i can think of for example, say his car is damaged and comes to your office with another car requesting full coverage for the damaged car then shows up next day with a claim.

Any of you guys wanna share your stories so we don't have to repeat the same mistakes that would be greatly appreciated by most of us newbies here.

 

[VolAgent]

And you didn't bother to get the VIN off the car you inspected? You failed to notice the VINs from the insured and damaged cars didn't match?

 

[russelltw]

An agent friend of mine insured a guy who later had hail damage during a hail storm. Unfortunately for the guy, the hail damage was on ALL sides of the car. Did not take the adjustor long to deny that one.

"mr client, you have two options - I write this check to repair your vehicle then call the law to arrest you for insurance fraud, or we just pretend this never happened"

 

[bill777]

And you didn't bother to get the VIN off the car you inspected? You failed to notice the VINs from the insured and damaged cars didn't match?

this hasn't happen to me yet i was just saying,
by the way do you inspect every vehicle before you bind coverage?
what if your client doesn't have it with him?

 

[joshb]

this hasn't happen to me yet i was just saying,
by the way do you inspect every vehicle before you bind coverage?
what if your client doesn't have it with him?

Bill, In our county we are not required to inspect any vehicles. There are only 6 (if i can remember correctly) counties in Florida that require inspections and we aren't one, yet. Unitrin is right, most of the non-standard carriers, have been hit hard with Fraud claims. Most of the fraud is with PIP Med Pay and UM not Comp/Coll. It will be very difficult, to get appointments as a new agent right now in our area with any auto carrier due to the number of fraud claims. Just so you know the Tampa Bay area was recently ranked number one in fraud claims across the nation. We are considered Tampa Bay area.

 

[b61mack]

with comp/coll, you could offer the company, to do an inspection before coverage. but on pip,med pay and um. that really is a police matter. they must have a profile of potential fraud clients, offer to stay away from that profile.. unless they are blowing smoke up your butt.

 

[FullAuto]

An agent friend of mine insured a guy who later had hail damage during a hail storm. Unfortunately for the guy, the hail damage was on ALL sides of the car. Did not take the adjustor long to deny that one.

So? As long as the NI said he was drivng it in the storm, you would expect it to be on all sides. People don't tend to fake a hail claim. They tend to help out a car with a real claim trying to total it.

 

[russelltw]

The hail damage was ALL over. Some dents would have to be if the car was riding on 2 wheels at a 45 degree angle. It's hard to have hail damage on the lower part of the door panels on ALL sides of the car. The NI obviously used a hammer and got a little carried away.

Side note, I love talking with our adjustors. They all have some great stories.

We have some parts of our state where it's not a matter of if the house will burn, just a matter of when. When 60+% of the claims are deemed arson, don't make your neighbor mad...

Here is the article.
http://fayobserver.com/articles/2011/01/20/1060808?sac=Home

 

[b61mack]

hail does bounce! hail damage is little dipples.

 

[djs]

Of course, bouncing hail doesn't dent cars! Having lived in Colorado for a while, hail damage can be pretty big dimples as well.

No doubt the adjuster knows what hail damage looks like and the damage didn't look like that. They don't arbitrarily turn down claims.... usually.

My guess is there were a few other red flags in the claim as well. I've seen a lot of this over the last few years, though mostly with 'stolen' cars, where the car was nothing anybody would ever steal.

Dan