Insurers Report 24% Rise in Suspicious Claims Since 2008

There has been a 24 percent rise in what insurance companies consider suspicious claims since 2008.

In 2008, a total of 74,146 so-called questionable claims, or QCs, were referred to the National Insurance Crime Bureau from its member insurance companies compared to 91,797 received in 2010 —a 24 percent increase. In 2009, a total of 84,407 QCs were referred. The difference between 2009 and 2010 was an increase of 8.7 percent

NICB’s report on 2010 questionable claims examines six referral reason categories of claims: property, casualty, commercial, workers’ compensation, vehicle and miscellaneous referred in 2010, with those referred in 2008 and 2009.

Questionable claims are those claims that NICB member insurance companies refer to NICB for closer review and investigation based on one or more indicators of possible fraud. A single claim may contain up to seven referral reasons.

Vehicle QC analysis identified auto glass fraud and inflated towing/storage bills as the top two referral reasons in 2010 garnering increases of 450 percent and 116 percent, respectively, over their 2009 numbers.