Fla. Releases 2001-2002 Top 10 Fraud List

The Florida Department of Insurance has released its 2001-2002 top 10 fraud list to kick off the Florida Insurance Fraud Prevention Week.

Regulators and investigators spent much of the past year rooting out unauthorized entities that sold bogus health insurance plans to more than 30,000 Floridians, leaving at least $6 million in unpaid claims. Other major insurance fraud cases involved agents swindling customers by slipping them unwanted products, or failing to forward premiums leaving policyholders without coverage. In the past several months at least 12 South Florida physicians have been charged with fraud for signing insurance claims for medical visits that never occurred. And then there was the Pinellas County man who continued to cash his wife’s workers compensation disability checks for six months after her death.

Insurance fraud adds as much as $1,400 a year to the average Florida family’s premium costs. Fraud occurs in all lines of insurance including auto, life, health and workers’ compensation. The Top 10 List includes some of the most expensive or unusual fraud cases department investigators have worked on over the past fiscal year that began last July 1. The 10 cases combined represent losses of more than $15 million.

During the Florida Insurance Fraud Prevention Week, some 450 insurance fraud investigators, both from the insurance department’s Division of Insurance Fraud and dozens of insurance companies, will meet in Orlando for the 10th year to analyze new fraud schemes and investigative techniques.

Insurance agents, claims adjusters and prosecutors also are attending the Joint Division of Insurance Fraud/Special Investigative Units Conference, organized by the Florida Insurance Fraud Education Committee.

Topics Florida Fraud