Feds Uncover Huge Insurance Fraud in NY
The world has changed a lot in the past ten years. One thing that law enforcement officials have had to do is to amp up their efforts to deal with fraud. Now, there has been a huge bust in New York that has uncovered more than $279 million dollars in auto insurance fraud.
Allegedly, the insurance fraud was committed by 36 individuals who were placed under arrest. The United States Attorney’s Office now has he fraud case and those individuals will be prosecuted.
The insurance fraud that was committed was done by exploiting the no fault insurance laws in the state of New York. The individuals who have been arrested allegedly created more than 100 fake medical clinics. The clinics were then used to fraudulently bill auto insurance companies for services that were never rendered.
The no fault law has been exploited because under it, a person who is involved in an automobile accident can collect up to $50,00 will usually easily pay out the benefits. They work with other criminals and can easily set up a fake medical clinic.
New York is a very big state and it is hard for law enforcement officials to be able to flush out the legitimate medical clinics from those that are committing insurance fraud. By law, these medical clinics are supposed to be run by licensed medical professionals. If a medical clinic is not owned by a certified medical professional then the benefits should not be paid out by the insurance company.
The problem is that sometimes medical professionals such as doctors are being lured into these schemes by organized crime members. They use the name and signature of a doctor and then think that they can just over bill auto insurance providers. This type of fraud is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It has gone on for more than five years and it goes to show that more work needs to be done to crack down on no fault law exploiters.
It is hard to not have a no fault insurance law in the state of New York. There are millions of drivers in the state and automobile accidents happen in the thousands every single month. It is important for drivers to be able to get the medical benefits that they need after a collision has taken place. However, insurance officials might need to make even more changes because auto insurance policy holders are going to feel the pain of insurance premium hikes soon.
This insurance fraud ring bilked insurance companies out of $279 million dollars which is a huge amount of money. Insurance companies will need additional claims adjusters to verify the claims that are being submitted to them. They will also need to do more undercover work to find out which medical clinics are committing fraud. If they do not, then the problem will just become an even bigger one.
New York drivers need to make sure that they understand that insurance fraud hurts them as well as their auto insurance providers. If they can help to uncover more insurance fraud rings then insurance premiums may go down soon.
