In order to claim a sum insured in the millions, a man had his hand deliberately cut off by a train. How could the court not believe the claimant’s version of the accident?
A 45-year-old man was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for fraud in the Dortmund / Germany district court. The judges considered it as proven that the defendant was trying to collect millions by committing insurance fraud.
Crocodile and nail boards
As the WDR television reports, the claimant was a professional player who had insured his hand with various accident insurance companies for around six million euros. The very same hand was then alleged to have been severed by a train. The defendant alleged that it was an accident and that he wanted to cross the tracks and stumbled into the path of the train. The court did not believe this account of events because for one reason the claimant had a history of taking out an unusually large number of accident insurance policies. In addition, in 2014, the man claimed that a crocodile had bit his hand while on vacation in Australia. However, it turned out that the man had inflicted the injuries on himself using two nail boards.
Whilst this is a particularly bizarre case, it does shows the unbelievable lengths to which a fraudster will go in their attempt to defraud insurance companies.
