Insurance Fraud | Insurance Misuse

To insure a bicycle, for example, no expensive specialist policy is required. The bicycle forms part of the household contents and is therefore automatically covered by household contents insurance. This generally also applies to e-bikes or pedelecs, provided they do not require a moped licence plate. Household contents insurance is a replacement value insurance. This means that even old, used items are compensated at the current new price. For some, the temptation is therefore great to replace a bicycle that is no longer fully functional at the expense of the insurer. However, by doing so the policyholder commits insurance fraud and thus a criminal offence.

Even though insurance contracts are based on mutual trust and insurers do not treat every claim as potential fraud, they nevertheless repeatedly deploy investigators such as our insurance detectives in Hamburg, who are very familiar with the usual tricks used by offenders and expose them with evidence admissible in court. What may seem like a minor offence to supplement one’s household income can quickly turn into an unpleasant criminal prosecution. Kurtz Detective Agency Hamburg is also happy to work nationwide for your insurance company: +49 40 2320 5053.

Simple Theft Must Be Insured Separately | Hardly Any Investigative Possibilities for Detective Agencies and Authorities

Fraud occurs most frequently in connection with bicycle theft. In its basic version, household contents insurance only covers burglary, meaning theft of the bicycle from a locked cellar, garage or even from a secured garden. Missing or implausible signs of forced entry raise doubts about the description of the incident.

The information portal fahrradexperten.com outlines the possibility of extending household contents insurance to cover simple theft, meaning the removal of the bicycle, for example, from a bicycle rack outside a supermarket. As there are usually no traces and no video recordings, reliable proof is difficult to obtain. Accordingly, our private investigators in Hamburg also have only limited possibilities to provide counter-evidence. At the very least, insurers require a police report in order to raise the threshold for staging a theft. In addition, proof of purchase must be provided. Anyone unable to present this must expect a lump-sum reduction in compensation.

Actual Theft Is Artificially Inflated

Fraud in bicycle theft cases does not only occur through reporting a theft when the bicycle has in fact been illegally disposed of. If the bicycle has actually been stolen, the damage is often artificially inflated by subsequently manipulating handwritten receipts from the retailer. By means of forensic evidence collection, research and software solutions, our detectives in Hamburg identify alterations to scanned invoices, examine any discrepancies between the stated type of bicycle and the inflated invoice amount and, where necessary, locate the original seller in order to compare the documentation. We are happy to advise you as an insurer if you suspect a case of insurance misuse or fraud: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-hamburg.de.