Taking a cue from Florida law
Florida not only has more than its share of unchecked home repair fraud, we’re also fighting a continuous battle to catch auto insurance fraud. Our neighbors in Louisiana are taking a lesson from Florida, with the legislature there now considering a tough new bill that makes staging a car accident in order to get insurance proceeds its own felony.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reports that HB 15 would make it a felony to stage a motor vehicle accident in exchange for anything of value, to scheme to document phantom wrecks, or to take part in filing a fraudulent insurance claim afterward. The bill provides a prison sentence of up to five years or even more, if the accident causes serious injury to death.
The bill has the support of Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, who modeled the bill on Florida law as well as those in Georgia and New York. “Prosecutors currently need to rely on a mix of state and federal laws, including federal laws about health care fraud, to handle cases like the recent staged accident case in New Orleans,” Donelon’s office told the newspaper. A more tailored-law to the crime, they added, is what’s needed to combat the growing problem there.
The situation in Louisiana has become so prevalent that the U.S. Justice Department has an ongoing investigation into the growing practice. The Times-Picayune reports at least 15 people have pleaded guilty so far in New Orleans to charges in a series of federal indictments that describe parallel schemes in which teams of “slammers,” “spotters” and local lawyers conspired to create whopping insurance payouts by packing people into vehicles and aiming them at tractor trailers. One of the alleged suspects was murdered shortly after being indicted last year.
The newspaper reports “Insurance defense attorneys have raised suspicions as well around a cadre of doctors who performed surgeries on many of those who claimed injuries from suspect wrecks.”
LMA Newsletter of 4-12-21
