The Staged Loss

Read the full article at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/video-explaining-insurance-fraud-staged-losses-barry-zalma-esq-cfe and see the full video at https://youtu.be/qf-ZGRwQ8sc and at https://zalma.com/blog plus more than 3450 posts.

Some losses are fictions created for the sole purpose of presenting a claim like those engaged in by convicted attorneys in my book, Insurance Fraud, Volume I. The number of variations on types of staged losses are limited only by the imagination of the insurance criminals. Some of the variations follow:

Staged Theft.

A staged theft occurs when “the owner contracts with an intermediary to dispose of a vehicle. The owner ‘gives up’ the vehicle and then reports it to the insurer as stolen.” The person to whom the vehicle is given up will pass it to a salvor who breaks it up into its component parts and sells the parts (a “chop shop.”)

The staged theft is difficult to detect unless the perpetrator is sloppy, aggressive or forgets his prepared script as to the loss facts. 

A staged theft of an automobile performed to defraud an insurer is a crime and can be punished in federal and state courts. Rocky Glen Beasley was unfortunate enough to be tried and convicted in federal court where fraud convictions bear definite sentences.