insurance fraud

The Public Prosecutor is seriously considering that the suspects in a fatal fire in a Diemen apartment building in July, set fire to the building to claim insurance money. Two other scenarios - that the fire was set due to a relationship quarrel, and that it was set to mask traces of a burglary - are also under consideration, but insurance fraud seems more likely, was revealed during a pro-forma hearing for suspect Gilermo I. on Wednesday, ANP reports.

A 50-year-old jeweler from Astelveen is suspected of staging a robbery at his jewelry store so that he could submit an insurance claim. The items claimed stolen from his jewelry store were insured for several million euros, ANP reports.

The jeweler was arrested last week on suspicion of fraud. He will stay in custody for at least the next two weeks, the court in Amsterdam ruled on Monday. 

On Tuesday the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, adopted a legislative proposal that gives insurers the ability to look at the medical records of patients if they suspect fraud is being committed. This can be done without the patient's consent, provided that the patient is informed no later than three months after the fact, Motherboard reports.

Insurance companies suffer hundreds of millions of euros in damages through insurance fraud every year. And those damages are covered by the consumer - an average Dutch household pays about 100 euros a year more to cover damages caused by fraudsters, according to a report by the Center for Combating Insurance Fraud of the Association of Insurers

Last year insurers saved nearly 99 million euros by tackling fraud - a 10 percent increase compared to 2013, despite the fact that fewer investigations were done, the Association of Insurers announced on Thursday.

Ada S. has been found guilty of murdering her second husband, a court in Leeuwarden, Friesland ruled today. She was immediately sentenced to serve twenty years in prison. The 52-year-old woman from Vortum-Mullem in Brabant was initially on trial for murdering both her deceased husbands, but acquitted on charges of the first death, due to lack of evidence.

Dutch society loses about €30 billion annually to fraudsters, including scams such as insurance fraud and swindling with benefits. The guilty parties are rarely caught, according to daily newspaper Metro.