Not as bad as calling the cops to tell them someone stole your drugs....but still really stupid!

The Dumbest Insurance Fraud Cases Of All-Time

With insurance fraud cases on the rise as people struggle through a tough economy, Life Quotes and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud have revealed the Top 11 Dumbest Insurance Fraud Cases of All-Time. Insurance fraud is a serious crime that costs insurance companies and policyholders alike. In fact, according to latest estimates by the Insurance Information Institute, property and casualty fraud alone costs you and I $30 billion a year. But some of the insurance fraud cases can be downright ridiculous. Here’s a list of some of the most memorable ones:

1. A corrections officer and native of Naugatuck, Connecticut, was defrauding his place of business by fraudulently collecting $5,000 in workers compensation, claiming he was injured on the job. That was until he showed up on TV in drag running a 40-yard dash trying to win tickets to a “Hannah Montana” concert. He still almost got away with it, until a photograph of him running in drag showed up in the local paper.

2. Carla Patterson, a woman from Virginia, allegedly found a rodent in her soup while eating at Cracker Barrel. She demanded the restaurant give her a $500,000 business liability insurance payout for her emotional trauma. Following an autopsy of the renegade rodent, it was discovered the mouse didn’t have soup in its lungs, so it didn’t die from drowning in vegetable soup. Patterson was charged with insurance fraud and spent a year in jail.

3. A couple in Massachusetts, Ronald and Mary Evano, took to glass eating in order to scam grocers, restaurants, bars and hotels out of insurance money. In almost every instance, the establishments involved in the case simply paid up in order to avoid a lawsuit. When it was all said and done, the duo collected nearly $200,000 in fraudulent claims using bogus identification and social security cards. While Ronald was incarcerated in 2006, Mary was on the lamb until last year.

4. A Suffield, Connecticut, ex-con decided to evade his mounting debt and a home that was going into foreclosure by burning it to the ground. In order to collect $250,000 in homeowners insurance money, Michael Paul Schook left a fat-filled pan on the stove before he left the house for an outing with his family. The house burned down, but unfortunately Schook was so impressed by his own brilliance, he told all the locals about his plan to burn down his house. Even his children told schoolmates of the dirty deed. School officials called authorities and Schook was charged with insurance fraud. He spent seven years in prison for the staged fire.

5. Tramesha Lashon Fox was a Houston high school chemistry teacher who was tired of her monthly car payments. Fox gave two failing students passing grades to steal and torch her Chevy Malibu so she could receive car insurance money. But instead of doing away with her car payments, the school did away with Fox’s job. She also landed in jail for 90 days.

For more, see “The 11 Dumbest Insurance Fraud Cases of All-Time” at www.lifequotes.co

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