MANY FRAUDS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 August 1937, Page 6

MANY FRAUDS

INSURANCE CLAIMS.

INJURY AND SICKNESS

EXPERIENCE IN AUSTRALIA.

The manager of a company which does a very large business jn Australia in insurance against sickness or injury' by .'accident said recently that there was no doubt that the insurance' of Australia were being defrauded .every week, states the Sydney Morning Herald. ■

‘‘Some districts are worse than others for fraudulent claims,” he said, ‘‘apuf they are always more frequent from the country than from the city. Jit city we can' exercise more supervision over insurance proposers than we can iu the country. But I blame the doctors ; even more than the policyholders for assisting in the fraudulent claims.

Seeking a Holiday

‘‘Not long ago a country doctor, who refused to he a party to such a claim, reported that one of our sickness policyholders had said to him: ‘I have not been feeling well lately and I want- to go to Sydney for a holiday; will you. sign a disablement certificate so that...] can claim my disablement allowance for that period?’ The doctor refused to do so and reported the case to usy with the result,that the policy was cancelled.”

“You have to be a Sherlock Holmes in this class of insurance,” said one Sydney insurance official. “In most cases an experienced officer can tell what w T e call good moral risk’ at . a glance. That means that the proposer is obviously a man of good character. But all the time we have to be on the watch for suspicious cases. Nevertheless, we give the policyholder the bene fit of the doubt in many cases.”

Deliberate Injury

About, 10 years ago, said insurance officers, it used to be common for Italian cane-cutters in Queensland toward the end of their season’s employment deliberately cut themselves and then claim a few weeks’ accident pay which would carry them over for some time after their employment had ceased.- As; a result of these and other fraudulent claims all the big companies had now refused to accept proposals 5 from Italians and other southern Europeans oiv the canefields.

Another bad case was of a man who found that lie could dislocate his hip and right it again at will. He made several successful claims which, for a time, baffled even hospital doctors attending him. Ultimately he was clisoyered because a medical student trying to manipulate the joint hi hospital hurt him so much Jfchat the man righted tlui hip himself and left'the hospital. The most frequent of all fraudulent claims, said one manager, came from' farmers or farm employees. They would have some little accident to one hand and the doctor would warn them against the danger of getting poison into the wound. Because of this risk the doctor would Sign a total, instead of a partial, disablement claim; bat the man would continue his work besides drawing his insurance allowance.