Life Insurance and Term Life Insurance - Free Quotes

We all read about the miraculous return of John Darwin following his disappearance five years ago.

Mr. Darwin supposedly died in a canoeing accident in March 2002. Now he and his wife face allegations of fraud for obtaining life insurance payouts of £137,000 and £25,000 in 2003.

Ripping off insurance companies is a sort of “fair game” to many people. These folk maintain that the insurance company takes their money year after year and they never see a penny return on all the premiums they pay, so it’s okay to take something off the insurance company once in a while. I once had a neighbor who proudly showed me his new set of golf clubs which he bought after he falsely reported that his old set had ‘been stolen’. False claiming and even faking their own deaths to obtain a bogus payout from a life insurance policy is often aimed at paying off heavy debts, leaving the families in the clear, starting a new life, etc.

Insurance fraud tends to decrease in periods of economic prosperity and increase during slowdowns and recessions. Here is an example:
Mr. Smith owned a manufacturing business and a family home in England. However, his company had taken a beating in the downturn, and he was worried that his growing debts would cause him to lose both his business and his home. At this time, he insured his life for large sums with several leading insurance companies.

Later that year, Smith traveled overseas and one day allegedly got into difficulty in a fast-flowing river and drowned. By chance, he had left his clothes and a letter addressed to his wife on the river bank, thus making it easy for the authorities to identify him. Mr. Smith's religion required that his body be cremated within 24 hours of his death. Thus, it was claimed that his body was burnt immediately after death.

The insurance company received a demand for a six-figure payout from Mr. Smith's life insurance policy. It was quickly realized that Smith's family stood to inherit a sum in the region of £500,000 if his death was genuine. The insurers hired a private investigator to discover the circumstances surrounding Mr. Smith's death. The private eye soon established that there were no eye-witnesses to the death. What's more, the death certificate had been signed by a relative of Mrs. Smith, which raised suspicions yet further. Result: No insurance payout but a criminal charge filed.

Don’t try this. Insurance companies check before they pay out sums like this. Wouldn’t you check?