It should come as no surprise that Hollywood has not made many movies about insurance—arguably among
the least glamorous of industries. However, there are three insurance-themed films worth watching. Two from the 1940
s film noir era are Do
portray insurance claims investigators in a positive light. Th
e Fortune Cookie, a 1960s comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, is about op
portunistic fraud. After Lemmon’s character is injured in an accident, his attorney brother-in-law Matthau has him fei
gn paralysis to scam the insurance company for a large payout.
Whereas the plot of The Fortune Cookie may sound implausible,
the reality is that insurance fraud is rampant. Fake and inflated claims are responsible for over $300 billion in claims
leakage annually. Staged accidents are among the most grisly types of insurance fraud. Here, organized criminal rings comprising complicit attorneys, medical pr
oviders, and actors fake serious road injuries to extract inflated medic
rs in civil litigation. Some such schemes have generated tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
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One recent example is so macabre that it should be made into a movie. Cornelius Garrison was a member of a Louisia
na criminal gang actively perpetrating phony injuries in staged accidents. Garrison was a “slammer” in staged au
tomobile “accidents”—a driver who intentionally crashes into other veh
icles (preferably 18-wheelers) in order to fraudulently collect insurance settlements. Some have estimated that G
arrison participated in close to 100 staged accident scams. But a
fter fellow gang members learned Garrison had turned witness for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), his
life was in danger. Co-conspirators offered to pay him to move to the Bahamas to escape retribution; however, Garrison chose to stay home, where he was murdered in a 10-bullet fusillade.
Staged accident fraud is a growing profit center for criminals. In R Street’s 2023 expert witness testimony to Congre
ss on the seamy side of third-party litigation funding, we cited New York’s $31 million staged accident fraud ring, orc
hestrated by litigation funder Adrian Alexander. The largest scheme
known at the time, it ensnared complicit attorneys and corrupt medical providers known as “medical mills,” engaging in artificial medical bill inflation and upcoding (the submission of claims containing c
odes for expensive medical services never rendered). Since then, another massive staged accident ring twice t
million racket that allegedly bribed 911 emergency line operators to direct callers to medical providers co
ntrolled by Bradley Pierre, the mastermind behind it.
The insurance industry loses billions annually to fraudulent claims. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud has estimated the cost of U.S. insurance fraud at $3
09 billion per year (including scams related to property and casualty 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.