Tackling Insurance Fraud

By Matt Carroll, Globe Staff | December 19, 2004



Susan Powell of Randolph received a surprise in her mail in August 2003 -- a letter from her auto insurer stating that a month earlier her 1992 Ford Taurus had collided with a red 1995 Chevy Blazer on Main Street in Brockton.



Powell's insurer, Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Co., wanted to know why she hadn't reported the July 22 collision, in which five people in the Blazer, including two children, suffered neck and back injuries. According to investigators' reports, the five eventually claimed more than $25,000 in chiropractic treatments.



But Powell had not been in an accident. However, her daughter, Alicia Chin, then 21, told her that on that date she and a friend, Rebecca Fagone, then 20, had turned down an offer to make $400 each in an auto insurance scam.



Powell relayed the information to her insurance agent, and the result was the first successful prosecutions by the Brockton auto insurance fraud task force, a joint team formed by the office of Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz and the Insurance Fraud Bureau, a public/private organization funded by insurance companies to root out fraud.



The task force officially started in October but began work less formally in the summer, spurred on by the fact that the city sees more fraudulent insurance claims per capita than most other communities in the state.



Brockton had 93 personal injury claims per 100 car accidents in 2003, compared with a statewide average of 43, said Daniel J. Johnston, executive director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau. Only Lawrence, with 134 injuries, and some Boston neighborhoods -- Roxbury, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and Roslindale -- had higher rates than Brockton.



Fraudulent claims cost Brockton's vehicle owners plenty. The average auto insurance bill in Brockton is $1,795 -- $619 higher than the statewide average, said Johnston. The bill would be $350 higher if not for the rest of the state's drivers, who subsidize Brockton's rates, Johnston said.



The Brockton auto insurance fraud task force has 12 cases pending. Two Plymouth County prosecutors, a Brockton police officer, and an insurance fraud investigator are assigned to the group, which focuses exclusively on fraud. The Insurance Fraud Bureau, while not specifically providing funding for the task force, gave the district attorney's office $50,000 this year, said Cruz. The squad, modeled after similar task forces in Lawrence, Lynn, Boston, Lowell, and the Springfield/Holyoke area, offers a $5,000 reward for information that leads to arrests and convictions.



The Brockton group's first successful case began with Chin's interview by an insurance investigator on Feb. 18. (Notes of investigators' interviews with Chin and her mother, details about the scam, and information about those arrested for the crime are in Brockton District Court case files created by insurance investigators and Brockton police.)



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