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.
From Jim Cronin of GEICO:
A great question to ask an insured in questionable property claims: “Have any of the documents you have submitted in support of your claim been gathered AFTER the loss?”
This question arose during the recent investigation of an $80,000 jewelry theft claim. The claim started out at around $2,000 (which was probably a legitimate amount) and grew to $80,000. The insured had taken an inventory, and everything that could not be accounted for was claimed as a part of the loss. After the examination of the insured’s books, inventory records, memo (consignment) records and sales invoices, I noted that several items that were claimed as missing were listed on a handwritten annual inventory for the previous year; but these same items did not appear to enter his inventory through invoices until three months later.
I first questioned the insured on tape as to whether or not any of the documents submitted in support of the claim had been generated after the loss. At first, he claimed that all documentation was genuine. I then confronted him with some of the discrepancies. The insured admitted on tape, and later inwriting, that he had falsified much of the documentation just to “fill the squares.”
We did not attempt to deny the insured’s claim out of hand at this point. Rather, we sought to further verify his loss through a “rollback” inventory using a forensic accountant, and we demanded copies of additional documents such as banking and tax records. The insured sought legal counsel, and subsequently withdrew his entire claim.
Asking the right questions up front can help verify legitimate claims and discourage non-meritorious ones.
© Copyright 1997 Alikim Media