NICB Sees 119 Percent Rise in Florida Suspicious Accident Claims Since 2008

Hillsborough, Dade and Orange Counties Lead Increase

DES PLAINES, IL--April 25, 2011: The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) today released its Florida staged accident report.  The report examines questionable claims (QCs) originating in Florida and referred to the NICB for one or more of the following referral reasons:  jump-in, paper accident/phantom accident, solicitation (chasers and cappers), staged/caused accident, or suspicious hit while parked.  The review covers staged accident questionable claims (SA QCs) referred to the NICB from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2010.

In 2008, a total of 1,268 Florida SA QCs were referred to NICB from its member insurance companies compared with 1,999 in 2009 and 2,779 in 2010.  That represents a 119 percent increase in 2010 from 2008 numbers.

Hillsborough, Dade and Orange were the top three counties for SA QCs while Tampa, Orlando and Miami were highest among the cities.  Tampa outpaced all the other cities growing from 125 SA QCs in 2008 to 739 in 2010—a staggering 491 percent increase.

The full report is at: Florida Staged Accidents .

The Florida SA QCs were also analyzed by loss type and ranked for 2009 and 2010.  The top five loss types were identical for both years: personal injury protection, bodily injury, other auto, property damage and collision.  The loss type with the most QCs for both years was personal injury protection with 776 QCs in 2009 and 1,113 in 2010.

Anyone with information concerning vehicle theft and insurance fraud can report it anonymously by calling toll-free 1-800-TEL-NICB (1-800-835-6422), texting keyword "fraud" to TIP411 (847411) or by visiting our web site at www.nicb.org.

About the National Insurance Crime Bureau: headquartered in Des Plaines, Ill., the NICB is the nation's leading not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to preventing, detecting and defeating insurance fraud and vehicle theft through data analytics, investigations, training, legislative advocacy and public awareness.  The NICB is supported by more than 1,100 property and casualty insurance companies and self-insured organizations.  NICB member companies wrote over $317 billion in insurance premiums in 2010, or approximately 80 percent of the nation's property/casualty insurance.  That includes more than 93 percent ($151 billion) of the nation's personal auto insurance.  To learn more visit NICB.