Health & Fitness
Auto Accident Fraud is No Accident in Florida
Our Florida legislators are gearing up to address the business of auto accident fraud. Will legislation and stricter regulations do it, or will it take community involvement?
Ah, insurance in Florida.
A cleverly designed system that requires you to hemorrhage monthly premium payments to protect things your insurance company says are valued somewhere between a centillion and a googolplex. Unfortunately, when you suffer any loss of the insured item the replacement value is conveniently reduced to the value of a Planck length. A good part of your premium payments go to cover fraud.
Auto insurance fraud is big business in Florida and getting bigger. Your Florida legislators tried to tackle this problem during the 2011 legislative session, but had to focus on more pressing matters like stopping yakking physicians from pestering patients with gun questions, students that flagrantly and just outright blatantly wear saggy pants to school, and then those out of control local municipalities that put undue restrictions on firearms through local codes and ordinances.
Find out what's happening in Clearwaterfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Next year Florida legislators will look at this problem again through bills filed by Sen. Mike Bennett (SB-254) and Rep. Jim Boyd (HB-119). These bills will cover things like providing discounts on premiums for using "approved" medical care providers and giving insurance companies a wider list of events or circumstances to deny claims. Our Florida Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Atwater, is also looking at this and has assembled who's who panel to discuss and address this issue. The panel will outline the problem and make suggestions to legislators at a later date.
You probably play by the rules and don't engage in auto fraud activity but because of a few bad apples that have figured out the system you will give up your ability to make choices and be held accountable to more stringent rules. Insurance companies play the victim and pass along the costs to you. Rather than denying questionable claims, fighting questionable claims, and tracking who and where the money is going to we will be regulated by more laws. In the end there won't be significant savings for us but we'll have more rules to follow. You would think something like this could be tracked, or monitored but heck why bother just raise the premiums, right?
Find out what's happening in Clearwaterfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau has put together some good videos that provide details of some of the most common types of auto accident fraud. Look at some of these to see how this kind of fraud is scripted, it could prevent you from becoming a victim. If you find yourself in a situation that resembles something like what is depicted then you will know what's coming in time to react quickly to avoid being lunch for a fraud perpetrator. If you see a victim of this kind of situation get involved and be a witness. The small investment you make in the time to get involved sends a message that fraud doesn't pay. Giving your information to a victim is one way to help. If we don't step up and address this situation as a community it will only get worse. It won't be taken care of by laws or regulations. It is up to us to get involved to help stop this activity.
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