Insurance firms are frequent rip-off targets

Next time your insurance premiums increase, consider this: Last year the state Insurance Fraud Division, part of the Attorney General's Office, received 712 complaints of insurance fraud worth a combined $8.4 million.

That means insurance companies were ripped off to the tune of more than $23,000 a day last year.

Ultimately we all pay the price in premium increases to help those companies recoup their losses.

Perpetrators were fined a total of nearly $400,000 by the courts and paid about $150,000 in civil penalties.

There were 94 criminal convictions last year.

Since the Attorney General's Insurance Fraud Division began prosecuting fraud cases in 1995, more than $74 million worth of fraud has been reported, and nearly $6 million collected in fines.

In 2006, a single $10 million complaint was reported, according to data released last week by the S.C. Insurance News Service, an industry group in Columbia.

Interestingly, the cases were divided fairly evenly around the state, with the four regions sharing about a quarter of all cases (although the Piedmont and Midlands were slightly higher and lower, respectively).

The greatest amount of fraud in one county, in terms of the number of cases and the value of that fraud, occurred in Richland County.

The breakdown of fraud complaints by sector was as follows: automobile 50 percent; workers' compensation 14 percent; personal and commercial property 13 percent; and health and medical fraud 9 percent.

A big increase came in life insurance fraud, jumping from $700,000 in 2006 to $3.5 million last year, so watch your back.

Protect your good name

Along a similar theme, identity theft has been the top consumer complaint for seven consecutive years, so the folks at First Federal Savings and Loan of Charleston tell me. Without expert help, victims spend an average of 175 hours restoring their good name.

With that in mind, First Federal has partnered with Identity Theft 911 to provide free identity theft resolution services to many of the bank's customers.

Every customer who opts for e-statements instead of paper statements will qualify automatically for the service free of charge for the next two years.

Through the program, eligible customers will have a personal assistant and advocate if they are ever victimized by identity theft.

Just let the bank know if you think you've become a victim (if you have a qualifying account with First Federal, that is).

The program includes unlimited one-on-one access to a fraud specialist, fraud alerts placed with all credit bureaus, assistance and guidance filing a police report, a year of follow-up service after resolution and a host of other features.

For more information, visit www.firstfederal-idtheft.com.

Reach Peter Hull at 937-5594 or phull@postandcourier.com.