PIP FRAUD TOPS FLORIDA’S ‘TOP 10 LIST’

Personal Injury Protection auto insurance fraud and title insurance trickery topped a summary of Florida’s top 10 costliest or boldest securities, financial and insurance fraud scams that resulted in arrests or convictions by the Division of Insurance Fraud just released by the Department of Financial Services. Tom Gallagher, Department of Financial Services CFO released the list, which tabulates cases during the fiscal year that began July 1, 2004, and ends June 30, 2005.

This year’s Top 10 fraud schemes ranged from title insurance trickery to the perennial list maker, PIP fraud. On the list is one PIP fraud case in which eight individuals posed as journalists to gain access to police accident reports in order to solicit crash victims to go to unscrupulous medical clinics. In another, more than two dozen individuals were arrested in a complex scheme that involved staging crashes in order to create “patients” for fraudulent medical clinics. The ringleader is suspected of staging more than 90 auto crashes.

The 10 cases, listed in no particular order, add up to more than $2.7 million in financial losses. Additional potential losses in these 10 cases–losses that may have occurred if an arrest had not been made when it was–add up to more than $1 million.