FAKED CLAIM EXPERTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1928, Page 3

FAKED CLAIM EXPERTS.

FLOPPERS AT £1 PKK ACCIDENT. NEW YORK, July 10. Many are the ways of earning a living in great cities, but to New York must be credited one of the strangest means of keeping the wolf from the door yet devised by active human imagination. For some time the police have been investigating charges by insurance companies that have been paying accident insurance claims to people who have faked their injuries.

The system -lias 'been exceedingly profitable to the inventors because it was worked out by the collusion of lawyers and doctors, thus giving eveiy appearance of reliability to the hundreds of claims which have poured into the insurance companies.

Daniel Laulicht, who is serving a three-year sentence ■in connection with the system, revealed in court yesterday how The companies were defrauded. To lend realism to the accident, be said that a man would go out and find defects in cellar doors and basement lights which abutted on to the street. Having found some defective iron bar or other means o.f causing injury to passers-by, the man would take a scout as witness and deliberately fall over the danger spot. The scout would net the pai t of £° 0( Samartan by jotting down evidence, and, if possible; be would secure additional witnesses. A visit would then be made to a lawyer by the “injured” person, armed with the reports and if a faked physical examination certificate would he issued by the doctor acting collusion. These false certificates were the means of ob-

taining money from insurance coinPa Sich stated that girls and men, would earn about £1 for each flop they made and were known as floppcrs in this new trade. One man. he reported, flopped fifty times ... n month without injury. This expert was so successful that he went into business on his own account rather than work at a mere £1 an accident for some law-

*"insurance brokers also entered into the conspiracy of supplying "'formation as to property best suited f i false accidents by reason of the amount for which it was insured. The court is investigating charges against 13 lawyers and several doctors.