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By Miles A. Hebding
For many years, there have been reports of fraudulent death claims originating in foreign countries utilizing forged documents – most notably, Nigeria and India.
The Nigerian death claims are of the accidental death type, frequently on a Common Carrier, Accidental Death policy. Many cases have been recorded in which Nigerian students in this country purchase Accidental Death coverage, return to their country and “become dead.” Most noted, is the scenario involving a common carrier, usually a Jitney driving through a jungle, which “runs off the road.”
The insurance company is then presented with a claim, substantiated in authenticity by a “Death Kit” which includes a Death Certificate, a Coroner’s/Police Report and a newspaper clipping. These are all official looking documents, but experience has proven that they are usually manufactured and printed in the Bronx.
A more sophisticated fraud has been perpetrated by Indian nationals who manufacture “paper people,” insure them on whole life policies, pay the premiums until the contestable period is over – and then kill the paper person on more paper, submitting a forged Death Certificate as substantiation.
With these fraudulent death claim situations in mind, a vice president of a large midwestern life insurance company commissioned my firm to attempt to purchase a “death kit” to test the current claim climate.
Imagine our surprise when, instead of a foreign country or the Bronx, we were able to purchase a blank Official Death Certificate, complete with an official seal, from a large county in a populous western state.
It was actually more difficult to purchase a blank certificate, as our sources wanted to fill one out and circulate it back through the system, so that an original could be purchased from the County Offices. This “Death Kit” seems to be so official that the normal methods of detecting forged documents will prove fruitless. In the above case, the document itself is not really forged.
It appears that the only defense at this time is to investigate each and every death claim submitted to determine if the “dead” person ever existed, if such a physician or hospital exists, if a coroner was involved and if they have any records to support the alleged Death Certificate.
Because the investigation is ongoing, there are no further details that can be released at this time. Companies paying death benefits, however, are urged to be very careful and to investigate claims thoroughly.
Miles Hebding is the President of Miles Investigations, Inc., with offices in seven cities throughout the country. He has been a licensed Private Investigator for 35 years and specializes in all types of insurance fraud investigations.
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