Pennsylvania Claims Investigators See Increase In Auto Insurance Fraud

It’s often a crime of panic, not prudence, of chaos, not design, and Tom Donahue, a former insurance claims investigator, could see the pattern in the automobile crashes he scrutinized. A driver would leave a bar, wreck the car on the way home, flee the crash and call police, claiming the car was stolen. What made Donahue suspicious? The fictitious thief always seemed to be headed toward the driver’s home. "It was never in the opposite direction," said Donahue, now the executive director of the Pennsylvania Insurance Fraud Prevention Authority, a state panel that parcels out millions of dollars from insurance companies to law enforcement agencies that investigate insurance fraud.