Joe Wehrle, the president and chief executive officer of NICB, explained that, “While many people have legitimate accidents in stores and businesses across the county, we’ve seen a growing number of cases that have some indication of potential fraud.” 

What scam artists are doing is they are going out in pairs to retailers and spitting up inside the stores.  One person goes down an aisle and finds a small bottle of liquid while the other person keeps a look out.  Then the first partner pours the liquid on the floor and pretends to fall.  The other partner then happens upon the scene and claims to have witnessed the accident.  

“They come into an area and hit several retailers, grocers, or other businesses with sophisticated schemes and professional execution,” Wehrle further explained.  “They hope to collect a quick payout and move on before anyone realizes what’s going on.” 

The five most questionable cities for questionable claims for slip-and-falls were New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and Chicago.

Wehrle said that workers’ compensation and slip-and-falls are priorities to watch closely in terms of fraud, and he has the NICB working to warn and increase the awareness of its member companies who write commercial insurance policies.   He stated that, unfortunately, many self-insured companies just consider the pay-out a cost of doing business so they write a check without investigating.  But that adds up to millions of dollars, so the NICB is reaching out to the self-insureds as well as the insurance carriers to join in fighting commercial fraud by sufficiently investigating while raising their awareness.  .