According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, MarylandGovernor Martin O'Malley recently signed a bill into law that makesstaging an auto accident to steal insurance funds a specificcrime.

Del. Dereck E. Davis (D) sponsored House Bill 1409, which limitsaccess to police accident reports and makes it more difficult forcriminals to recruit real crash victims into insurance schemes thatinvolve fake injury claims. Only accident victims and reporterswill be allowed to gain access to the reports up to 60 days afterthe crash.

Making staged accidents a specific crime gives prosecutors adevice in the courtroom that helps them reduce staged accidentrings by convicting the leaders and organizers. According to theCoalition Against Insurance Fraud, without this law, prosecutorswould have to use other laws that may not as easily fit theelements of this crime.

“Phony injury claims can be highly profitable,” said HowardGoldblatt, the Coalition's director of government affairs, in arelease. “That profit incentive makes the rings persistent,well-protected, and hard to penetrate and bust. They can be equallyhard to prosecute in court, but targeted fraud laws giveprosecutors leverage that can increase convictions.”

Staging a crash could result in up to 15 years in state prisonand fines of up to three times the amount of insurance fundsstolen.

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