The latest statistics compiled by the National Insurance Crime Bureau in August 2010 point to a 14% increase in suspicious auto insurance claims for smashed windows during the first six months of the year.
Approximately 50 percent of the 7,993 potentially fraudulent insurance claims filed this year involved smashed car windows, making such cases the top fraud perpetrated by vehicle owners themselves.
The next most common occurrence, staged accidents, was followed by questionable claims for hail damaged roofs. All point to the same source, consumers strapped for cash in the recession seeking to capitalize on their insurance coverage.
Many consumers, resentful of paying insurance premiums over a long period of years with no perceived benefit, feel that such cases of fraud are actually justified and constitute nothing more than getting back their own money.
Unfortunately, the ongoing persistence of such fraud cases has longer range consequences in that insurers seek to recoup their losses to fraud by increasing premiums across the board.
In the face of the continued recession, more than five times as many smashed window claims have been made in 2010 as in 2009, with staged car accidents up as much as 27 percent.
During the same period, staged accidents and claims for bodily injury have cost the insurance industry more than $7 billion a year. Ron Poindexter, NCIB direction of operations in the southwestern U.S. said, in a statement, "There is a link between the downturn in the economy and the increase in all types of insurance fraud," a case that will likely continue until real recovery is felt nationwide.
