Some of the most common insurance fraud schemes include:

• Falsifying the amount of a claim, hiding or lying about information when making a claim or submitting a false claim
• Concealing important information on an insurance application or when reporting a loss
• Staging an accident or an event that results in a claim
• Committing arson in order to profit from the resulting insurance claim
• Faking a theft claim or failing to report property later recovered

The penalties depend upon the value of the property, services or benefit that was received as a result of the fraud. Restitution to the insurance company may be ordered by the court in addition to prison time and fines.

Insurance fraud is considered a type of theft that can carry a prison sentence up to 20 years with a significant fine if the amount of the theft is over $35,000. The prison time and the fines decrease as the dollar amounts go down, therefore correctly calculating the amount of loss becomes very important. This is just one issue in these cases.