TV REVIEW : An Eye-Opening Look at Auto- Insurance Fraud

“PrimeTime Live” has a provocative segment tonight (at 10 on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) on auto-insurance fraud in the Los Angeles area, which some experts believe is eating up 25 cents of every dollar that policyholders pay in premiums.

With excellent footage on actual staged accidents as seen by an undercover team from the state Department of Insurance’s fraud bureau, officials who are interviewed and correspondent Chris Wallace discuss how street hustlers known as “cappers” orchestrate the accidents and the injury claims that follow. But they put the ultimate blame on the attorney who files the claim.

“First, he pays the capper, on average, $1,500 up front for every phony passenger he brings in (to make a claim),” Wallace declares. “Then after getting the insurance money, he splits it three ways--one-third to the clinic, one-third to the passengers and one-third for himself.” Just one crash can bring in more than $20,000.

A deputy to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner concludes, “There are probably 100 lawyers in this county that should go to prison for staged auto accident insurance fraud.”

But only two have, and the segment shows how the attorneys protect themselves with law-office administrators and other middlemen, making it very difficult to go after them.

There are entertaining interviews with a giggling former “capper” discussing how he did his work, and an evasive attorney declaring, “We are not dealing with Abe Lincoln’s law office.” Certainly, we are not.