It should come as no surprise that Hollywood has not made man
y movies about insurance—arguably among the least glamorous of industries. However, there are three insurance-th
emed films worth watching. Two from the 1940s film noir era are Double Indemnity and The Killers, both of which portray insurance claims investigators in a p
ositive light. The Fortune Cookie, a 1960s comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, is about opportunistic fraud. After Lemmon's character is injured
in an accident, his attorney brother-in-law Matthau has him feign paralysis to scam the insurance company for a large payout.
While the plot of The Fortune Cookie may sound implausible, the reality is that insurance fraud is rampant
t. Fake and inflated claims are responsible for over $300 billion in c
laims leakage annual. Staged accidents are among the most grisly types of insurance fraud. Here, organized c
riminal rings including complicit attorneys, medical providers, an
d fake actors serious road injuries to extract inflated medical reimbursements and funds from insurers in civil li
tigation. Some such schemes have generated tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
One recent example is so macabre that it should be made into a movie. Cornelius Garrison was a member of a
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Louisiana criminal gang actively perpetrating phony injuries in staged accident. Garrison was a “slammer” on stage
d automobile “accidents”—a driver who intentionally crashes into other vehicles (preferably 18-w
heelers) in order to fraudulently collect insurance settlements. Some have estimated that Garrison participated in close to 100 staged accident scams. But after f
ellow gang members learned Garrison had turned witness for the F
in danger. Co-conspirators offered to pay him to move to the Bahamas to escape retribution; however, Garrison ch
ose to stay home, where he was murdered in a 10-bullet fusillade.
Staged accident fraud is a profit growing center for criminals. In R Street’s 2023 expert witness testifies to Congress on the seamy side of third-party litigation
funding, we cited New York’s $31 million staged accident fraud ring, orchestrated by litigation funder Adrian Alexa
nder. The largest scheme known at the time, it ensnared complicit attorneys and corrupt medical providers know
n as “medical mills,” engaging in artificial medical bill inflation and upcoding (the submission of claims containing
codes for expensive medical services never rendered). Since then, another massive staged accident ring twice the size of Alexander’s has come to light: a
$60 million racket that allegedly bribed 911 emergency line operators to direct callers to medical providers controlled by Bradley Pierre, the mastermind behind it.
The insurance industry loses billions annually to fraud claims. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud has estimated the cost of U.S. insurance frau
d at $309 billion per year (including scams related to property and cas
ualty as well as life and health insurance). Property and casualty insurance fraud accounts for approximately $
45 billion, with automobile insurance fraud as a major component; In fact, the FBI estimates that staged accidents are responsible for approximately $20 billion in illegal claims.