True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud - Number 12

Insurance Fraud Based on a Claimed Serbo-Croation War

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE presents videos so you can learn how insurance fraud is perpetrated and what is necessary to deter or defeat insurance fraud. This Video Blog of True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud with the names and places changed to protect the guilty are all based upon investigations conducted by me and fictionalized to create a learning environment for claims personnel, SIU investigators, insurers, police, and lawyers better understand insurance fraud and weapons that can be used to deter or defeat a fraudulent insurance claim.

Arson for Profit During the L.A. Olympics

In 1983, just before the Olympics came to Los Angeles, the doctor decided he needed additional money to buy the lot next door to his Westwood, California duplex. It was his dream to tear down the duplex and build million dollar condominiums on the two lots. Before he could do so, however, he had to remove his tenants from the duplex. He also needed a substantial amount of cash as seed money for his intended development. His plan was to have a fire destroy the duplex and to use the money he expected to receive from his fire insurer to start construction of the condominiums.

He called his insurance agent who came to the duplex where the doctor lived with his girlfriend and her young son. He told his agent he had learned about the increase in construction costs. He told the agent he decided to double the limits of liability on his fire insurance policy. The agent, whose only concern was collecting additional commissions, put through the request for the increase with pleasure since doing so doubled his commission.

The doctor, explained to his insurance agent that since he had escaped communist Yugoslavia ten years before he did not understand American insurance.

When the doctor treated his Croatian patients he told them he was Croatian. When he treated Serbian patients he told them he was Serbian. His practice flourished in the Yugoslavian community.

He continued to proclaim his total innocence even after admitting there was evidence to support his plea of guilty to insurance fraud. The judge sentenced him to ninety days in the county jail and ordered him to make restitution. The doctor paid the attorneys fees his insurer incurred in defending the bad faith lawsuit he brought for failure to pay his claim that was dismissed because of the insurance fraud conviction.

© 2022 – Barry Zalma

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders.

He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business.

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You can contact Mr. Zalma at https://www.zalma.com, https://www.claimschool.com, [email protected] and [email protected] . Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award.

You may find interesting the podcast “Zalma On Insurance” at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma;  you can follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at; you should  see Barry Zalma’s videos on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg/featured; or videos on https://rumble.com/zalma. Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims–library/ The last two issues of ZIFL are available at https://zalma.com/zalmas-insurance-fraud-letter-2/