Authorities put an end to a car insurance fraud
ring in Sumter County, South Carolina on April 6. 17 people were arrested while the ringleader, Tyburious Heyward, remains at large. The group is accused of staging car accidents and filing phony insurance claims. Heyward allegedly began orchestrating the scheme while serving time behind bars for a similar crime.
Altogether, the group defrauded insurers of more than $93,000. Jerry
, your car ownership super app
, collected multiple sources to give you the fullest picture of the scam. Four fake accidents ripped insurers off of nearly $100,000
Arrests might’ve just been made, but this car insurance fraud scheme has been running for quite some time. The Post and Courier
(P&C) says he was disciplined “for possessing or attempting to possess a cellphone, as well as soliciting a jail employee” in April 2020. One accident between a U-Haul truck
and a 2005 Ford Mustang cost insurers almost $20,000. Another involving two Nissans resulted in claims for thousands of dollars in lost wages due to supposed injuries. Heyward was supposedly benefitting from the scheme before he was released with supervision in April 2021. The affidavit states that he paid one of the other defendants $2,500 to cash a $10,000 insurance check for him.
MORE: A Washington Man Got Caught Trying to Insure His Car After an Accident
The scheme’s alleged ringleader has plenty of experience in car insurance fraud
Heyward was caught in an almost identical scam in 2019. That conspiracy took place in 2017 and also involved multiple cofraudsters in four fake accidents in Sumter County. But that time, Heyward and his cronnies managed to net nearly $150,000 in false claims.
The size of that scam may have helped inspire the statewide partnership that brought down Heyward’s latest plot.
Fitsnews
says the take-down is the first major bust to come from an alliance announced last summer between South Carolina
Law Enforcement Division (SLED), state prosecutors, and the state’s Department of Insurance.The arrests are a big win for the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that cost taxpayers $2 million, but the investigation isn’t over yet. According to the Department of Insurance’s spokeswoman Katie Greer, additional claims involving the defendants are still under review.
The NICB says staged car accidents are “big business”
MORE: CARCO Has Helped Dismantle Numerous Car Fraud Rings
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) spokeswoman Tully Lehman told P&C that this kind of car insurance fraud ring can be difficult to untangle. Innocent drivers and bystander can end up caught in the fray, but they can also end up being coconspirators.
At the end of it, all the people who pay the most are the drivers paying higher premiums to make up for the $29 billion in annual losses incurred by insurance providers.
Car insurance
fraud might be hiking your premiums up, but you can lower them back down by shopping for quotes with Jerry. A licensed broker that offers end-to-end support, Jerry will generate competitive quotes from top providers in less than a minute. The average Jerry user saves over $800 a year.
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