Claiming fraudulent lightning damage is nothing new..this DA was too stupid not to use a contractor who would have lied on an affadavit for him. Premiums for Homeowner insurance are computed taking into consideration this type as well as all other types of fraud. We all pay for it. When a power supply, capacitor, mother board or other electrical components are burned it’s difficult to prove it was not lightning and a subsequent power surge. Insurance company claims departments depend on a signed lightning affadavit in an effort to help keep people honest. Trouble is, there are tons of repair shops who will sign even though they know the item failed because it was worn out (AC compressor). They want the business and will lie to get it. Oh well….claims up…reserves down….rates up for everyone in the territory.
I interpreted the article as suggesting this guy did not have any damage to electronics at all but merely used high end items to boost the insurance payout for his imaginary “loss”.
Also for all you audio/video buffs out there, if you have a few thousand in home theater gear it is worth spending a couple of hundred bucks on a quality surge protector/line conditioner… Get one without MOVs (which are *cheap* components that are designed to fail). Brickwalls are superb and rated to military specs.
Notable Wiki quote about MOV’s: “The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has documented many cases of catastrophic fires that have been caused by MOV devices in surge suppressors, and has issued bulletins on the issue.”
Sure it’s fraud but this is small change compared to casualty claims, just add a Lawyer and a couple of decimal places. Reserves, schmures, don’t fret the carrier will add 30% more since we’re in the last quarter and that saves money from bad faith fines, lawsuites and DOI scrutiny.
When people see laywers, politicians and other high profile people steal from the system impurudenty and all too often overt immunity, no wonder they want some of the spoils. That good old “everybody does it” and “they all lie”, so what?
Show some suites from the court houses, state houses and white coats with their
over utilized MRI/CTS badges in shackles on the rags’ front pages and boob tubes, maybe guys like this pathetic dupe will be detered.
Whatever happened to g. Washington and the cherry tree?
Now we have trained a whole society that when you buy one the next one is free, is true.
That there are such things as corporate taxes and when a government lowers taxes
it’s a gift and on and on.
We laugh at the really smart or clever theves. “Know how to tell when a ______
is lying?”
Duh to all of us.
Oh, don’t worry no one will miss that pen
you took home, they’ve go more than they need, right?
We have updated our privacy policy to be more clear and meet the new requirements of the GDPR. By continuing to use our site, you accept our revised Privacy Policy.
Claiming fraudulent lightning damage is nothing new..this DA was too stupid not to use a contractor who would have lied on an affadavit for him. Premiums for Homeowner insurance are computed taking into consideration this type as well as all other types of fraud. We all pay for it. When a power supply, capacitor, mother board or other electrical components are burned it’s difficult to prove it was not lightning and a subsequent power surge. Insurance company claims departments depend on a signed lightning affadavit in an effort to help keep people honest. Trouble is, there are tons of repair shops who will sign even though they know the item failed because it was worn out (AC compressor). They want the business and will lie to get it. Oh well….claims up…reserves down….rates up for everyone in the territory.
I interpreted the article as suggesting this guy did not have any damage to electronics at all but merely used high end items to boost the insurance payout for his imaginary “loss”.
Also for all you audio/video buffs out there, if you have a few thousand in home theater gear it is worth spending a couple of hundred bucks on a quality surge protector/line conditioner… Get one without MOVs (which are *cheap* components that are designed to fail). Brickwalls are superb and rated to military specs.
Notable Wiki quote about MOV’s: “The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has documented many cases of catastrophic fires that have been caused by MOV devices in surge suppressors, and has issued bulletins on the issue.”
Sure it’s fraud but this is small change compared to casualty claims, just add a Lawyer and a couple of decimal places. Reserves, schmures, don’t fret the carrier will add 30% more since we’re in the last quarter and that saves money from bad faith fines, lawsuites and DOI scrutiny.
When people see laywers, politicians and other high profile people steal from the system impurudenty and all too often overt immunity, no wonder they want some of the spoils. That good old “everybody does it” and “they all lie”, so what?
Show some suites from the court houses, state houses and white coats with their
over utilized MRI/CTS badges in shackles on the rags’ front pages and boob tubes, maybe guys like this pathetic dupe will be detered.
Whatever happened to g. Washington and the cherry tree?
Now we have trained a whole society that when you buy one the next one is free, is true.
That there are such things as corporate taxes and when a government lowers taxes
it’s a gift and on and on.
We laugh at the really smart or clever theves. “Know how to tell when a ______
is lying?”
Duh to all of us.
Oh, don’t worry no one will miss that pen
you took home, they’ve go more than they need, right?
until the bullard story is on IJ…it’s all over the wilmington NC news. That guy had quite a racket going on.