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We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

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Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#31

Post by ldoughty »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #11
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

> Some years ago, a police officer casually told me, “You should get a dashcam, insurance fraud is common around here.” His offhand comment stuck with me, but life moved on. This is very, very good advice. Dashcams are cheap, and easy to install. Treat yourself - spending $80 on a camera could save you thousands in lawsuits, insurance hikes, costs of a new car, etc. To me it seems nearly as important as having a smok…

I don't remember them being easy to install; you need mounts and in the case of a rear dashcam, someone to wire them into your rear seat. Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

I got a dashcam that ran off USB, which I knew my car had a port for on the center console. There's ways to run the wire under the trim for the most part, but it's a long run.. and at the end there's a part that remains visible to some degree.

There are cams that can do a rear view as well from inside the cab, which likely provides enough evidence if you're rear ended.

I only opted for a forward facing dash cam.

In my state, you are 100% at fault for rear ending someone unless you can prove your innocence -- which a dashcam can do assuming the person in front does something shady (like lane change + intentionally slam breaks).

However, do note that dash cams are not going to magically make rear ending the person in front of you somehow that person's fault. Virtually no one seems to leave enough follow distance by default because doing so means someone merged into the space.. and a dash cam doesn't shift the blame for simple rear endings unless it can prove some kind of malice or inattentiveness on the other driver (but even then, inattentiveness of the other driver is not necessarily a legal defense for you not leaving enough room to react.. perhaps if they stopped faster than a car could be expected to break, e.g. hit a concrete wall....) -- of course, laws vary by state

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#32

Post by stearns »

astura wrote: post #7

Lol, wow! The article says >After filtering out invalid VINs, we narrowed the dataset to roughly ~15 million crashes. (We also removed all drug and alcohol related crashes, since it’s unlikely someone committing insurance fraud would be under the influence.) Which I immediately found extremely implausible. Seems like the author is very much NOT familiar with the type of people who commit insurance fraud. In the next…

>Which I found very much not plausible.

Yeah. I'm not a fraud expert, but "impaired judgement" is a common effect of alcohol, and "desperation" is a common effect of drug addiction, so it seems weird to assume that people using drugs are committing fraud at a lower rate than the overall population rate.

As a side note, I grew up in Norwich so it's funny to see it mentioned in that report as "remote" because there isn't really anything remote in Norwich. Wilderness Rd, despite its name, does a ring around Mohegan Park, which is an urban-ish park with some trees and a rose garden. You can walk to the rose garden from the high school, which I sometimes did. Anyway.

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#33

Post by CYR1X »

gnfargbl wrote: post #25

I don't see nearly enough complexity in this analysis to justify the claim of having found any insurance fraud. Firstly, there's no account for correlation between the features identified. The article mentions VINs which have several single-vehicle accidents, for example, but someone who has one single-vehicle accident is probably more likely to have another. Switching coverage is another of those potentially-correla…

Totally agree.

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#34

Post by School-Cotton »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #21
Noumenon72 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember them being easy to install; you need mounts and in the case of a rear dashcam, someone to wire them into your rear seat. Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

Cars should just give you access to the cameras that are already there. Why get a rear facing camera when your car is already legally required to have one?

Cars aren't legally required to have a rear-facing camera. New cars are. My 2008 Infiniti doesn't have one, for example.

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#35

Post by chickenzzzzu »

gnfargbl wrote: post #25

I don't see nearly enough complexity in this analysis to justify the claim of having found any insurance fraud. Firstly, there's no account for correlation between the features identified. The article mentions VINs which have several single-vehicle accidents, for example, but someone who has one single-vehicle accident is probably more likely to have another. Switching coverage is another of those potentially-correla…

Now it's time for the devil's advocate-- if the title was "some people get in a lot of accidents", would the top comment be "actually it's more likely that insurance fraud is the answer"

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#36

Post by quantumgarbage »

gnfargbl wrote: post #25

I don't see nearly enough complexity in this analysis to justify the claim of having found any insurance fraud. Firstly, there's no account for correlation between the features identified. The article mentions VINs which have several single-vehicle accidents, for example, but someone who has one single-vehicle accident is probably more likely to have another. Switching coverage is another of those potentially-correla…

yes agree, kinda clickbaity

title: "we found insurance fraud in our crash data"

end of post: "Does this prove fraud? Absolutely not."

lmao

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#37

Post by steve_adams_86 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #20
Noumenon72 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story doesn't make sense: it's not clear who hit who, whether you were scamming them by not giving insurance, or how a dash cam would help when no real damage was done.

The older couple hit him, with their motionless, parking-braked vehicle. Possibly by using dark matter/energy to cause space-time expansion that pushed his car into theirs.

Snow storm detail indicates the road may have been slippery. They might have locked their wheels on an icy hill and skated into the other car. It happens a lot where I live.

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#38

Post by quantumgarbage »

terrib1e wrote: post #14

Why would it be unlikely that the person committing fraud is under the influence? There's no reason to assume that.

Some states have "alcohol-exclusion laws" which make it possible for insurers to deny coverage if you had a car accident while intoxicated.

I guess that might be one explanation?

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#39

Post by chias »

chickenzzzzu wrote: post #35
gnfargbl wrote: post #25

I don't see nearly enough complexity in this analysis to justify the claim of having found any insurance fraud. Firstly, there's no account for correlation between the features identified. The article mentions VINs which have several single-vehicle accidents, for example, but someone who has one single-vehicle accident is probably more likely to have another. Switching coverage is another of those potentially-correla…

Now it's time for the devil's advocate-- if the title was "some people get in a lot of accidents", would the top comment be "actually it's more likely that insurance fraud is the answer"

For what it's worth, the headline here does NOT say "we find it more likely than not that there is evidence of insurance fraud in our crash data".

Re: We Found Insurance Fraud in Our Crash Data

#40

Post by gruez »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #11
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

> Some years ago, a police officer casually told me, “You should get a dashcam, insurance fraud is common around here.” His offhand comment stuck with me, but life moved on. This is very, very good advice. Dashcams are cheap, and easy to install. Treat yourself - spending $80 on a camera could save you thousands in lawsuits, insurance hikes, costs of a new car, etc. To me it seems nearly as important as having a smok…

I don't remember them being easy to install; you need mounts and in the case of a rear dashcam, someone to wire them into your rear seat. Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

>Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

And probably charge you $1000 to install a $100 dashcam.

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