In the Irkutsk branch of Rosstrakh, they uncovered an attempt to get a CASCO payout for an International 9800 truck, which was insured only after it was damaged. The company suspects collusion between the policyholder and an agent and has handed the materials to law enforcement. The article also explains why insurers are increasingly facing dubious cases and expect more fraud amid changes in claims handling.

An insured person, V., applied to the Irkutsk branch of OJSC Rosstrakh with a request
for an insurance payout under CASCO for his International 9800 truck,
which was damaged in a traffic accident.
As follows from the
client’s statement, while driving on the Kultuksky Trakt toward Irkutsk, he caused the vehicle to leave the roadway,
as a result of which it overturned into a ditch. As a result of the incident,
the driver suffered injuries, and the truck sustained mechanical damage,
the repair of which was estimated at 1.3 million rubles.
However, during the review of the Insured’s application by branch employees,
it became clear that he was trying to obtain money from the company
by illegal means. It turned out that the vehicle shown in the
photographs before the accident differs significantly from the vehicle in the photographs after
the accident. It is unlikely that the Insured would have thought to falsify the fact of the accident
(especially since he himself suffered bodily injuries), so the question arose of
a collusion between the Insured and an agent of Rosstrakh in order to
achieve material gain. This resulted in the agent changing the effective dates
of the insurance contract, namely insuring an already damaged
vehicle retroactively, which was established
as a result of a conversation with him by the company’s security service employees.
Information on this case has been handed over to law enforcement agencies.
According to the director of the Irkutsk branch of Rosstrakh, Irina Ni, “this
case is not uncommon. Every week the company registers approximately
20-25% of insurance claims under OSAGO and up to 10% under CASCO that raise
our doubts (mainly because of unjustifiably inflated repair estimates). As for cases where the insured really wants to falsify the fact of an accident,
they do not exceed 7% of the total number of claims, but due to the ‘holes’ in our legislation, they do not always make it to investigation and court. A similar situation exists in other insurance
companies as well. In addition, due to the introduction of direct loss settlement
and the registration of minor incidents without calling the traffic police, we
forecast an increase in the number of insurance fraud cases by 20-30%”