“Expert: Fraudulent Jewelry Claims a Low-Cost, High-Payout Endeavor”

Swift Currie attorney Melissa Segel was quoted in an article published by Claims Journal, “Expert: Fraudulent Jewelry Claims a Low-Cost, High-Payout Endeavor.”

Jewelry claims have become a more prevalent fraudulent activity recently, especially because they do not cost criminals much initially.

“The policies are really easy to get, and they’re also very inexpensive, so the policy itself might just be 1 to 2% of the cost of the item,” she explains. “So, it’s a very small investment, and I think people are realizing how easy it is to make a claim on jewelry policies.”

Segel addresses why identifying and proving fraud is difficult stating, “The challenges we have is that there’s some inconsistencies with the way things are prosecuted… there’s a lot that goes into proving that the incident did not take place as alleged, or that the item of jewelry was not really owned by the insured.”

“People are figuring out that [they can] borrow a piece of jewelry, get an appraisal, walk into an agent’s office, purchase the policy for just 1% of the value of the item, return that jewelry item to their friend, and then two, three months later, claim it was lost and think that they’re going to recover the full amount,” reasons Segel.

To view the full article, you may click here.