Letter: Rates are higher due to insurance fraud

Having once lived in New York state, I discovered it had a straightforward way of ensuring that drivers were insured. Every year in order to renew your car’s registration you were required to submit proof of insurance and smog certification. You then received a very large sticker that was prominently placed on the driver’s side windshield that could be easily detected from a great distance. The sticker changed color each year which aided law enforcement to quickly identify whether you belonged on the road or not. New York charges the same road-usage fee for your car registration whether you drive a BMW or a beat-up Chevy.

I’m really tired of the insurance rates I pay as a good driver. We’re penalized for living in Glendale. My husband and I have been victimized twice by aggressively bad drivers who sought to acquire money from our insurance companies for accidents they caused. Both of them deliberately created some post-accident car damage to make it look like something else had happened and also tried to sue for “soft tissue bodily damage” in court. Neither won, as our insurance company aggressively researches what truly happened, thus one person ended up being turned in to a national insurance fraud investigative division and faced criminal charges for her deceit. So some justice was served, but not enough, as we have seen our insurance go up several hundred dollars in the past few years even though we have been accident free for nearly 10 years.

Samanthe Kadar
Glendale