Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) is taking another retrospective on 2020, noting that auto insurance fraud charges in the province actually saw a year-over-year increase from 2019.
The insurer said in a release that auto insurance fraud charges in Manitoba increased 44% compared to the year previous. A total of 130 charges were laid against 49 people in 2020, compared to 90 charges against 34 people in 2019, MPI found.
“This increase should not be interpreted as more fraud taking place in our province. The increase reflects MPI’s commitment to reviewing suspicious claims,” said MPI vice president of customer service and COO Curtis Wennberg.
“Auto insurance fraud affects honest customers through their premiums and MPI is committed to ensuring people receive the benefits they are entitled to and prevent fraud. MPI remains totally focused on reviewing suspicious cases.”
According to MPI, its Special Investigation Unit (SIU) helped create claims savings of over $10 million for the insurers’ rate payers. The SIU also managed to close over 1,200 investigations in 2019.
Read more: Top insurance fraud claims of 2020
Last week, MPI released its list of top five auto insurance fraud claims for 2020. In it, the insurer described some of the more elaborate and bizarre auto insurance claims it handled last year that were later found to be fraudulent.
