The world is sometimes an extraordinary place. Indeed, so bizarre are some of the stories you pick up in the news, it's as if you somehow have just woken up on Mars. Of course, we are all familiar with the massive amount of fraud which costs us more than $1 billion dollars a year. There are now major gangs at work, pooling resources through the offices of professionals to give themselves the necessary air of respectability. Sadly, some doctors and attorneys have been seduced on to the dark side by the sheer volume of money to be made by staging accidents and claiming major amounts of damages for fictitious injuries. Although the FBI has a unit dedicated to investigating this type of fraud, they are few and the criminals are many. At state level, there are major funding deficits and local law enforcement does not place a high priority on the investigation of crimes where no one is physically injured. What we might call "white collar crime" committed by professionals is very rarely investigated.
This explains why a civil case is big news in Texas. It seems a wealthy man recently bought a Bugatti. This piece of luxury on wheels has a price tag somewhere around $1 million and is somewhat visible. Shortly after buying it, he paid for comprehensive insurance, alleging its value to be $2.2 million - obviously he had fitted gold-plated dohickeys in its special places. Three weeks later, this magnificent machine ended up in a lagoon. Our driver claims he swerved to avoid hitting a pelican. Pause for a moment here and consider the effect of large birds hitting beautiful cars or vice versa. Anyway, the civil suit says the insurer has video supplied by witnesses, apparently showing the insured driving directly into the lagoon without the aid of a bird.
Auto insurance quotes are higher than they should be because insurers are rarely motivated to investigate fraud. This time, it seems, they have the evidence. We wait the trail's outcome with interest and hope it will signal a trend to keep auto insurance quotes lower.