Did you know that the annual cost of insurance fraud in the United States is an estimated minimum of 80 billion! In fact, fraud accounts for 10% of the property / casualty insurance industry’s annual incurred losses and loss adjustment expenses. Additionally, the FBI says that healthcare fraud is an estimated 3% to 10% of total healthcare expenditure in the U.S.

The idea of someone invading your home can be terrifying. 3.7 million homes on average are burglarized each year in the United States. Even more frightening, almost a third of these incidents occurred while at least one person was home. By learning more about what attracts burglars to your home, you can ensure preventative measures are put in place to reduce the likelihood of being a target.

Let’s face the facts, no one wants to have their home ransacked by burglars. You arrive home after being gone and suffer the horrible experience of finding your house in total disarray and your valuables missing. Before this unfortunate event happens to you, check out this infographic.

When you suspect that your partner may be behaving in an unfaithful fashion, it can not only be difficult to determine whether or not your suspicions are valid, but also what next steps you might take. The team at PInow surveyed their network of trusted infidelity investigators to discover what the common indications of infidelity in a relationship.

In the midst of all national crime trends, certain threats can be localized. For example, murders may be decreasing in one city as robberies are increasing in another. To identify the locations where crimes were the most or least common, the team at PeopleFinders turned to crime data from the FBI. These crime numbers are only an indication of the true level of criminal activity.

Most private investigators, at one time or another, have investigated fraudulent workers compensation claims and in fact, many train on that type of work, as these claims always seem to be in good supply. Much of my earlier experience involved insurance claims and my biggest client in my early days was a large insurance defense firm. Many people, even the seemingly honest ones, will at least exaggerate a claim and the less than honest will fabricate one all together. 

In a previous column, I wrote about fake and fraudulent claims that people make against insurance carriers; those that we usually uncover during an investigation. A red flag usually pops up sometime during the adjuster’s examination and then we get the call. In this case, where the claim amount is in the millions of dollars, we’re likely to get that same call.

Working undercover is my favorite part of the job; it can bear much fruit. When you need information about someone, there’s no better source than that person himself. The trick is to get that person to trust you enough to share the information that is vital to your case.

S. Brian Mathews of LA Intelligence was recently interviewed on Between Takes where he provides some very interesting and informative information regarding private investigation services. Brian recounts some of his most interesting cases and discusses the extreme amount of fraud that is taken place in our society.

At some point my client and his wife realized that the money given to the decorator was not being used for its intended purpose — furniture, accessories, etc. They attempted to contact the decorator but to no avail, so he sued him and won a money judgment for more than $550,000 by default. Clearly, he had no defense — so why show up!