"Xinhua Survey"

Xinhua News Agency, Tianjin, April 24: Why do these luxury cars have frequent "accidents"—— Initial automobile insurance fraud

Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Jianglin

Recently, the police in Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning and other places have successively detected several cases of car insurance fraud, including one criminal gang involving nearly 10 million yuan.

The reporter found that in recent years, vehicle insurance has been regarded as "wealth insurance" by some criminals, and has become a "disaster area" for insurance fraud crimes. Car insurance fraud not only brings economic losses to insurance companies, but also seriously infringes the legitimate interests of insurers.

"Who touched my accident record?"

"My car has six accident records. What happened to your insurance company?" Not long ago, in the lobby of an insurance company in Nankai District, Tianjin, Ms. Zhou and the salesperson of the insurance company had a dispute over the accident of her famous brand car.

"I don't drive this car very often. I usually put it in the garage for regular maintenance several times. How could there be so many problems?" When Ms. Zhou argued, the salesperson took out claim forms, power of attorney, and accident certificates with her signature, which stunned Ms. Zhou.

Coincidentally, when registering to sell second-hand cars, Mr. Liu, a citizen of Tianjin, also found a mystery in the accident record: the car that usually only had a scratch accident had a record of multiple collisions with luxury cars, and he received a generous compensation from the insurance company

The clues of each case were keenly captured by the Economic Investigation Intelligence Guidance and Investigation Joint Service Center of Tianjin Public Security Bureau through big data screening. "We found that many accidents were related to luxury cars, and the same luxury car often changed its license plate, and there were accidents one after another, which was somewhat strange," said He Lianning, deputy leader of the Fifth Detachment of the Economic Investigation Corps of Tianjin Public Security Bureau.

Relevant clues were quickly handed over to Nankai Branch of Tianjin Public Security Bureau. Through careful sorting and careful analysis of the vehicles involved and the claim information of thousands of accidents, Pan, the head of an auto repair factory in Nankai District, came into the police's view.

"Most of the vehicles responsible for dozens of accidents are maintained or repaired in Pan's repair shop, and those 'hit' luxury cars are registered in Pan's name, and then transferred to her employees or relatives for many times." Wang Xiaoyue, the chief of the special police and the first grade police of the five crime investigation detachment of Nankai Branch, said.

After comprehensive analysis of gang members, involved funds and involved vehicles, the context of a series of insurance fraud cases gradually became clear, and the insurance fraud criminal gang led by Pan was immediately arrested.

Multiple claim settlement links are seduced and lost

After being questioned by the police, Pan gradually explained the facts of the crime.

At the end of 2015, she began to plan to forge serious collision or immersion damage accidents of vehicles to defraud insurance claims. In the name of Dong, Yang and other employees, she successively registered six automobile maintenance enterprises. Later, several people deliberately created accidents, and Dong, Yang and other people pretended to be the drivers of the accident vehicles to declare claims, defrauding the insurance company of claims.

Through investigation, the gang has committed more than 100 insurance fraud crimes since 2016, involving nearly 10 million yuan. Among them, nearly one million yuan was defrauded through only five forgery accidents of one vehicle.

According to the police handling the case, these accidents can be roughly divided into several steps: replacing good parts of luxury cars with old ones, and "collision" occurs in the repair shop; Drive the luxury car to the "accident area" to forge the scene and cheat the traffic police to obtain the road traffic accident identification; Pretend to be a vehicle driver and apply to the insurance company for compensation in the name of the vehicle applicant and the insured.

"They pretended to be original parts with very low cost old parts, and after crashing, they fraudulently offered high prices to defraud compensation. Once they succeeded, they replaced the original parts, and the vehicle recovered as before." Wang Xiaoyue said that in the process of forging accidents, falsely offering high prices, and maintaining at low prices, repairmen, claim adjusters, car owners and other roles played an important role.

Mr. Pan's employee, Mr. Dong, has cooperated in the crime for a long time. In return, Pan gave Dong a long-term benefit.

Some salesmen of insurance companies have also become "insiders". In the process of vehicle loss determination and claim settlement, the name of Mr. Zhang, the former salesman of an insurance company, repeatedly appeared in more than 10 "accidents".

For these "accidents", some car owners do not know, but some car owners voluntarily cooperate to defraud insurance.

"It's free to repair the car, as long as you leave the car in the repair shop for a long time, you will get a red envelope." Guo, the owner who was punished for participating in the insurance fraud, explained that when he went to the repair shop to repair the car, the staff induced him to do so. The other side said that if they want to get a discount, they should be allowed to install the old parts on the car and pretend to be involved in a traffic accident.

At first, Mr. Guo hesitated, but the staff assured that after obtaining the claim, not only the vehicle would be restored to its original condition, but also the money would be distributed. Unable to resist the temptation, Guo agreed to come down.

The police investigation found that Guo only saved thousands of yuan in vehicle maintenance costs and received hundreds of yuan in red packets, but the repair shop repeatedly used Guo's car to forge luxury car collision accidents and defraud up to 400000 yuan of compensation.

Later, Pan was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment for insurance fraud and fraud, and Dong was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for insurance fraud and fraud. Other gang members also received corresponding legal sanctions.

Strengthening supervision and cracking down on upgrading means to deal with automobile insurance fraud

In recent years, insurance fraud cases have become increasingly organized, professional, trans regional and trans institutional.

In March this year, the Beijing police beat up a professional insurance fraud criminal gang that deliberately created accidents to defraud insurance. In this case, the in-service employees of an insurance company connected with the former employees and the designated repair garage to defraud compensation by means of fabricating, deliberately creating a vehicle accident or expanding the loss of the accident.

Not long ago, the Liaoning police also cracked a case of self directing and self acting fake car accidents to defraud insurance, and 10 suspects were taken criminal coercive measures according to law.

Wang Xiaoyue said that in many cases, the claim adjuster of the insurance company did not go to the scene of the accident when dealing with it, and some of the "quick place" signatures were just proxy signatures. Insurance companies should improve their internal control mechanisms and strengthen supervision and restraint on important posts such as underwriting and claims. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen the education of law-abiding, compliance, integrity and self-discipline, and improve the professional ethics and quality of employees.

Recently, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration drafted the Measures for Anti insurance Fraud Work (Draft for Comments), which stipulates the anti fraud responsibilities and tasks of insurance institutions in terms of organizational structure, internal control, risk identification and disposal, information system and data management.

The intelligent construction of big data can also form more effective supervision and deterrence for such crimes. According to He Lianning, after the establishment of the Joint Service Center for Economic Investigation, Intelligence, Guidance and Investigation of Tianjin Public Security Bureau, it used big data to analyze the economic crime situation in key areas and study and judge major clues. Since 2022, more than 10 auto insurance fraud gangs have been found and eliminated, more than 60 suspects have been arrested, and nearly 100 vehicles involved, amounting to tens of millions of yuan.

The reporter noticed that in a series of car insurance fraud cases in Pan, dozens of car owners were also subject to legal sanctions. The police remind the car owners and insurance claim settlement personnel not to touch the legal red line for petty gain, or they may be investigated for criminal responsibility due to suspected insurance fraud; In case of finding relevant clues of violations and crimes, report to the public security organ in a timely manner.