Tall tales: SGI details top five insurance fraud cases from 2022

David Letterman had his top 10, and now SGI has its top five.

The Crown insurance company said Monday its Special Investigation Unit (SIU) uncovered a number of fraudulent insurance claims in 2022, resulting in $5.8 million in savings for SGI.

Here was the company’s top five.

Heist hoax

A man contacted SGI and said his vehicle was missing. It had been parked in front of his house with a spare key locked inside.

An hour later, police found the vehicle near the man’s home, sitting on the front lawn of another person’s house. The vehicle had collided with a parked car and a tree.

After the man filed a theft and collision claim with SGI, investigators found security footage showing the vehicle travelling at a high rate of speed, losing control, and colliding with a parked vehicle and the tree. The footage also showed a man matching the owner’s description walking away from the vehicle and locking it with a fob.

The man confessed to causing the collision following what SGI called “a celebration.” He faced $50,000 in vehicle and property damage.

Rollback ripoff

A woman claimed she had driven her truck through standing water, which caused the engine to quit. She claimed the truck needed significant engine repairs or even a replacement.

The SIU investigation found the vehicle’s odometer had been rolled back to show 150,000 fewer kilometres than what should have been on the engine, in hopes of increasing the value of the truck.

The woman withdrew her insurance claim, saving the company $7,000.

Turnoff tales

A man told SGI he was driving at about 55 kilometres per hour through foggy conditions early one morning when he missed a turnoff and hit an abandoned vehicle on the shoulder of the highway.

The man said he and his girlfriend panicked and walked to a nearby house for help instead of calling the police.

The home’s residents told officers the couple didn’t want police to know about the crash.

When officers went to the site of the collision, they found drug paraphernalia inside the man’s vehicle. Investigators also determined there wasn’t any fog that morning and there wasn’t a turnoff that the driver could have missed.

The SIU discovered the vehicle was travelling at around 110 km/h, and they found witnesses who said the man and his girlfriend were very intoxicated.

SGI denied the claim for misrepresentation, saving the company $40,000.

Deer dupe

A woman filed an insurance claim saying she had left her vehicle beside the road after hitting a deer. She added that when she came back, the vehicle had been torched.

The SIU found a witness who said they saw two people taking things out of the vehicle before it went up in flames. Investigators also found the vehicle wasn’t registered at the time of the collision — but the woman did buy a registration less than an hour after the crash.

Investigators believed the woman had set the vehicle on fire so she could get a payout. The claim was denied, resulting in savings of $5,000.

Sleeping scam

A woman claimed she had fallen asleep while driving and collided with a parked vehicle.

“(The woman) admitted to significant financial hardship and had recently spoken with a bailiff about repossession of her high-valued SUV the day before the collision,” SGI said in its release.

“SIU conducted several interviews to confirm (the woman) was in financial trouble. It was discovered she had lied to her bank about being able to make her delinquent payments in order to ‘buy herself some time.’ ”

Investigators studied crash data and found the vehicle was idle five seconds before the collision. That was followed by a quick acceleration and the SUV reached 31 km/h at impact. The SIU determined the woman intentionally caused the collision to avoid having the vehicle repossessed.

That saved SGI $63,000.

Anyone with information about potential insurance fraud is asked to contact SGI’s Special Investigation Unit at siu@sgi.sk.ca or 1-800-667-8015, ext. 6887, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.