The Actual Cost of Auto Insurance Fraud

Fraudulent actions are a regrettable fact of life. Within the insurance industry, fraud often takes the form of overinflated claims, filing multiple claims, reporting a claim for an accident you were not involved in, illegally registering cars in an area that makes auto premiums less expensive, and many others.

Many people assume that when they participate in these fraudulent claims and practices, the only people who are hurt are insurance executives. Of course, this is not the case. Sure, executives take a hit, but every customer of the carrier these criminals defraud pays for the misconduct in the end.

Higher Premiums

The fallout from auto insurance fraud begins with increased premiums that all policy holders must pay. Between the money stolen by the excessive or inappropriate claims, the cost to investigate claims, and changes in risk assumed by the claims, carriers have no choice but to spread their loss by raising the premiums for all policyholders. In short, the average policyholder ends up paying for the fraudulent claims.

More Paperwork

When fraudulent claims are filed and found, or paid and later discovered, insurance carriers have to adjust their process in the hopes of preventing fraud from happening in the future. This means insurers will go to great lengths to create applications and claim forms that attempt to catch potentially fraudulent activity. This will increase your work as well, because all policyholders must complete this paperwork. It also creates additional costs for the carrier which is then passed on to policyholders.

Wasted Taxpayer Dollars

Some fraudulent claims require arson investigators or the police. When the claims are fraudulent, these investigations waste tax payer dollars and investigators time. Needless investigations can also tie up law enforcement officers.

Insurance fraud is an issue all policyholders must consider, even if we are not guilty of fraud ourselves. We should take the necessary safe and reasonable steps to ensure that those we know and love are not committing fraud and that potential frauds are reported to the proper authorities.