This week Governor Rick Snyder signed an Executive Order creating a new division within the Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS), which will investigate acts of fraud in the insurance and financial sectors.  The department will work in tandem with other law enforcement agencies to share information on fraudulent activity and collaborate to prevent the occurrence of future instances of fraud within the auto insurance, health insurance, and banking sectors.

Executive Order 2018-9 permits the new Anti-Fraud Unit to:

• Conduct background checks on applicants for licenses and current licensees.
• Collect and maintain claims of criminal and fraudulent activities.
• Investigate claims of criminal and fraudulent activity in the insurance and financial services markets that, if true, would constitute a violation of applicable state or federal law.
• Maintain records of its criminal investigations.
• Share records of its investigations with other criminal justice agencies.
• Review information from other criminal justice agencies to assist in the enforcement and investigation of all matters under the authority of DIFS.
• Conduct outreach and coordination efforts with local and state law enforcement and regulatory agencies to promote investigation and prosecution of criminal and fraudulent activities.

In addition to the already existing anti-fraud efforts at DIFS, the Executive Order allows DIFS to conduct more thorough and comprehensive background checks and to coordinate and collaborate with other law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute fraudulent and criminal activities in the insurance and financial services sectors.

In March, DIFS launched their new webpage, www.mi.gov/InsuranceFraud, that enables consumers and the insurance industry to report fraud.  Since that time, DIFS has received 167 complaints of fraud from consumers and 68 complaints from the industry.  The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ received 3,453 suspected insurance fraud claims from Michigan last year.

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