From The Editor

Copyright held by The John Cooke Fraud Report. Reprint rights are granted with attribution to The John Cooke Fraud Report with a link to this website.

Life—and business—is all about learning. And we in the fraud-fighting industry are privy to a never-ending flow of lessons.

I have a confession to make. When John Cooke was born in 1994, I was downright cocky about how much I knew—or better stated, how much I thought I knew. There was no insurance scam I hadn’t seen or heard about, no scheme that rang a bell as original and no company claims file that surprised me or even offered much of a challenge. I perceived myself as an expert, as did many of my counterparts in industry.

Communication between company SIUs was (and is) minimal and even sharing between SIU investigators representing the same company was (and is) rare. So how unusual was it for an investigator to conclude that his own knowledge on the topic of fraud comprised the equivalent to a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannicas? We are what we know … and what we don’t know does not exist.

The opportunities presented for learning since 1994 have been awesome. Suddenly, information from other investigators, attorneys, government types and more began pouring in. The limitations imposed by being aware only of my own experiences were magically removed and I began to learn. The foremost lesson, however, was that I actually knew almost nothing about fraud—a topic that was far more vast than I’d ever comprehended it to be. The next lesson was the absolute worth of closing my mouth and opening my ears. There is an unlimited supply of knowledge out there for the taking, but it can’t pass into the brain through an open mouth.

The Encyclopedia of this industry exists within our populace. Each of us represents a page in a volume and one person or one company is not whole without the rest of the set. Individually, we are not experts. Collectively, however, we pose a true threat to the criminal community.

The John Cooke Insurance Fraud Report; fighting fraud through communication and education.

© Copyright 1997 Alikim Media