From the Editor

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This is a 32-page paper.  That’s how we started and that’s what the business plan called for.  Just a simple, little, 32-page paper.  Black and white, easy to put together, regular eight-hour days, a five-day work week and weekends with the family.

The sixteen extra pages in this issue are merely an optical illusion.  They’re only included to tease you; to psychologically condition you to think that fraud is an epidemic problem that threatens to eat the insurance industry alive.

During the past two months, “The John Cooke Fraud Report” attended a number of industry meetings.  We had the chance to meet many of you and to get to know you.  And sometime during one of those many pleasurable and enlightening conversations, a huge awareness of what it’s really like out there sunk in.

Consider that the fraud industry is a giant tree.  We’ll label our trunk “fraud.”  Next come the branches – we’ll give them names like “workers’ compensation,” “disability,” “automobile,” property,” “health care,” and the list goes on.  The branches grow into smaller branches.  For instance, the “automobile” branch sprouts out into “medical clinics,” “body shops,” “unethical attorneys,” “unsupportive legislation,” and this list, too, goes on and on.  Then there are the twigs.  For example, those on the body shop branch might be “dishonest appraisers,” “parts fraud,” “paper vehicles,” etc.

By the time the tree is drawn, it far more resembles a hundred-year-old redwood than it does a sapling.  And because of its immense size, there is limited contact between a twig from one branch and a twig from another branch.

Criminals seldom stick to one single act of crime.  The fraudulent workers’ compensation claim may be inter-related to a disability claim, a medical claim and perhaps even an automobile or premises liability claim.  The ABC Compensation Company, the DEF Disability Company, the GHI Auto Liability Company and the JKL Medical Plan may all be simultaneously paying Joe Crook – but without ongoing education and communication efforts among these carriers, the problem will remain critical and our fraud-fighting efforts will fall short.

In this issue of “The John Cooke Fraud Report” we have tried our darnedest to provide just as much information as is possible given the restrictions of our 32-page format.  As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way.  We hope you enjoy our 48-page effort.

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