Lousiana Legislation Deflates Airbag Cons

Louisiana is deflating life-threatening airbag scams with a newly passed bill, announced the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

The Louisiana bill was passed earlier this month. The measure makes it a specific crime to market or install counterfeit airbags. Crooked body shops install cheap counterfeits that don’t deploy properly, then charge auto insurers full fare for expensive legitimate bags. Motorists have been killed or badly injured in crashes without working airbags.

Several states have enacted airbag laws after a national outcry about a Chinese national who recently was convicted of trying to flood the U.S. with counterfeit airbags. Alabama inked a law this year. New York, Connecticut and Ohio enacted airbag laws last year.

“Airbags protect us from serious injuries or worse. We have the right to expect that airbags indeed will protect us when we get into an automobile,” Howard Goldblatt, the Coalition’s director of government affairs, told a Louisiana legislative committee in testimony last month.

Louisiana also imposed stiff penalties on recruiters who impersonate an insurance representative to hound crash victims for suspect treatment at shady clinics. In addition, the state’s fraud law and state-police fraud unit were extended for 2 more years.

Source: Coalition Against Insurance Fraud