Cleverly engineered schemes aimed at defrauding New York’s no-fault auto insurance market cost carriers twice the national average in personal injury protection claim expenses, industry sources contend.
At a recent meeting held by the Insurance Federation of New York Inc., industry representatives, including senior claim managers and heads of special investigation units, described a growing pattern of elaborate no-fault auto schemes involving a cast of players from legal and medical professionals, to people called "runners," ready to refer accident victims to fake facilities termed "medical billing factories."
John Reiersen, senior executive vice president of the Robert Plan Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y., described one such scenario in which a staged accident involves the purchase of an insurance policy, usually with a bad check or a low-value vehicle.
