Would you try to justify telling a lie on your car insurance claim – or for that matter – any insurance claim? I find it strange how consumers justify telling a lie when submitting an insurance claim. It is as if they try to convince themselves that what they are doing is not wrong as this is simply how insurance is supposed to work …!?
A lady once told me that she was waiting for the insurance payment on a claim submitted for damage to her cellular phone. She said she had difficulty hearing the calls on her phone as something was wrong with the volume control. She then decided to put the phone in a glass of water – and alleged that the phone fell in the kitchen sink or bath or something like this. I was not impressed.
The interesting part in this conversation was the remark that “We are anyway paying for insurance.” Why is it that we are happy to pay a monthly premium to our medical fund and comfortable with not claiming from the medical fund, but when it comes to short term insurance we believe that the insurer owes us something even though we have not suffered the damage insured against? It feels as if we are thankful for having good health and not having to claim – but we are not thankful that our earthly possessions are protected and we will seek a fraudulent way to claim for something we are not actually insured against…
Another lady told me that the hub cap on her car was damaged by the mechanics working on her car, but she decided not to take the matter further. This was before she knew how expensive the hub caps are – now, months later, she is considering ways to submit a claim for the damage to her hub cap…
Why would we even consider fabricating a claim…why is the moral fibre of society so weak that we can easily justify telling lies? Supt Rob Askew once remarked that “The best thing about the truth is that you don’t have to try and remember later what you said…” It is sad that the biggest prevention to telling a lie appears to be the fear of being caught – instead of protecting our integrity!
Yesterday, on the Road Safety Blog we added an interesting story titled “Briton jailed for causing accidents to claim from car insurance”. This fraudster caused at least 92 crashes for his clients by braking suddenly at a roundabout so the vehicle behind could not avoid a collision. The driver of the vehicle behind was persuaded into believing that he is at fault. The claimants then demanded compensation from the victim’s insurance firm for personal injury, legal fees, courtesy cars, and often with the damage to the cars fabricated.
Fraudsters are costing the insurance industry millions of rands – but more importantly – they are making you and me pay much more for expensive car insurance premium. Next time someone tells you with a smile on his face about the insurance payment received after “coming up with a good story” – remember that he is costing you money and that he is not someone of integrity. Consider blowing the whistle on that person – you might be protecting not only the truth – but also all your other friends who are paying a monthly insurance premium!!
You do not have to be a religious person to know that it is wrong to tell a lie to the insurer…ask yourself whether you can lie to yourself…ask yourself how much money does it take to buy your integrity…is this really worth it? Hope not!!
Also view: