Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: For-Profit Insurance is Government Authorized Crime Syndicate

Transcript: Interview with Donald Trump 05/11/2017

A shocking percentage of the public is incredibly bad at basic fundamental math!

Otherwise they would realize that the fundamental principles of both the Gambling and Insurance industries are based on fraud!

They would also realize that Trump's statement isn't remotely accurate and sounds like the misleading commercials about cheap insurance that don't pay out nearly as much as they imply. It doesn't take much to realize that the more Colonial Penn Gerber Life or other cheap insurance offers spend on their ads for insurance the less they have available to pay out claims, especially if they intend to be a profitable company!

This guarantees that they must be hiding something in the fine print!

The public is constantly told that the insurance companies are competing for their business; but this competition can't possibly change basic fundamental math. Instead of competing by doing a better job they compete by coming up with more deceptive ads to convince the public they're getting a better deal than they are.

Insurance is pooled risk; which means that everyone puts in a little money in the form of premiums then when one policy holder has an accident or needs health care or something the pool of money is available to help them out, or at least it's supposed to be. But they also have to take bureaucratic expenses and profits out of that pool of money. So the more they compete with deceptive ads the worse the deal for customers, since the money spent on those ads is no longer available for claims. The same goes for commissions, office expenses money donated to political campaigns and epidemic levels of fraud.

What they don't tell you is that the media, insurance companies, and politicians who collect enormous amounts of money from both these industries have an incentive to sweep it under the rug so that the vast majority of the public is unaware of how big this problem is, and that it is contributing to hundreds of deaths per year, and who knows how many injuries or billions of dollars in fraud.

They don't tell the public that a large number of people involved in the insurance industry are often involved in many of these scams, including murder, but not limited to that.

They don't tell the public that there are also an enormous number of police officers involved in insurance fraud, including murder although other types of fraud are more common including arson, auto theft but the most common insurance fraud by police is almost certainly workers compensation fraud.

They don't tell the public that instead of organizing information about this so that we can find out how widespread this is they often pass trade secrecy laws that enable the insurance industry to hide the data.

The is FBI also in a position to provide data that could enable the public to understand how widespread this problem is but they do little or nothing.

They don't tell the public, at least not in a high profile manner, that according to Insurance Fraud 2016 and numerous other sources that about 10% of property/casualty losses are due ton fraud. Nor do they often explain the fundamentals of insurance which is that it is pooled risk. This means that everyone contributes to the pool of money used to pay out claims, but first expenses have to be taken out, and in the case of for profit insurance, the profits also have to be subtracted before money is paid out.

No matter how much money insurance companies spend on advertising or lobbying they can't change basic math!

There's little or no chance that the average policy holder gets more than sixty to seventy cents on the dollar for the money they pay in premiums. It may not be possible to eliminate bureaucratic expenses; but if they at least explained the basic principles to the customers and voters they could at least understand simple ways to minimize them.

Why not let the public know how big a percentage of the premiums are paid out to policy holders, and how much is used for other expenses?

Could it be that if the public did know they would realize that insurance should be kept to a minimum if it is bought at all; and the people controlling large institutions are getting a cut of the loot?

If anyone paid close attention they might have noticed that the media briefly reported on a requirement that eighty percent of the premiums collected for the so called Affordable Care Act are supposed to be used on health related expenses. This is almost certainly much better than typical insurance, assuming they actually do it and don't hide non-medical expenses by claiming they're medical expenses. This might explain why the insurance industry was outraged by this rule. the reporting on this was very brief so most people won't remember it. However due to high costs of medication or other medical expenses the cost of the Affordable Care Act policies is still far higher than other countries that have Single Payer.

It is virtually guaranteed that many of the highest advertised insurance plans don't do nearly as well and many may only pay less than fifty cents on the dollar to claims, although there is little or no way for most people to know this.

What the defenders of the current system don't want the public to know is that they're the only ones benefiting from it.

If the majority of the public knew more about the basic principles of insurance they would realize that the current system is a scam and they would be better off with a different system, perhaps Single Payer, like many other countries already have!

As long as the public remains ignorant of these basic principles the insurance industry will continue providing financial incentives for epidemic amounts of fraud that many people including their own agents, doctors, police officers and other professionals involved in related industries are carrying out on a large scale, even if they're only reported as isolated incidents!

A few years ago a couple went to a Casino to gamble while they waited for their home to explode, unintentionally killing two of their neighbors, so they could collect insurance money from it.

Woman Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison for Blowing Up Her House to Collect Insurance 12/20/2016

A judge sentenced a woman in Indiana to 50 years in prison for her role in planning to blow up her house to collect insurance money, reported The Wall Street Journal. The 2012 explosion killed two people.

On Tuesday, Marion County Superior Court Judge Sheila Carlisle sentenced 51-year-old Monserrate Shirley after Shirley pleaded guilty in 2015 to two felony counts of conspiracy to commit arson at her Richmond Hill home in Indianapolis. Shirley testified against her boyfriend who lived with her at the time, Mark Leonard, and his half brother Bob. Together, the three cooked up the house explosion plot to collect $300,000 in insurance money.

Prosecutors said Leonard lead the plot for the November 2012 explosion. He is said to have poured gasoline in the bedrooms, let the house fill with gas after removing safety valves, and started the fire by setting the microwave to spark. Shirley and Leonard were at a casino gambling when the explosion happened. The explosion would kill a couple living next door and would go on to damage or destroy 80 homes nearby. Of the homes impacted by the explosion, 30 were so beyond repair they had to be destroyed. Complete article

This is just one of thousands of insurance scams that are endangering the public that gets reported as an isolated incident. If you look through enough of them it becomes apparent that a lot of the people interested in trying to get rich off insurance scams are often also interested in gambling where the odds are also rigged against the players.

Most of the public doesn't seem to understand one of the most basic principles of propaganda described in a quote, often ironically attributed to Vladimir Lenin, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth," or at least it seems to. However advertisers, media pundits, political strategists, and many other college educated people are well aware of this propaganda tactic, although they rarely if ever try to explain it to the majority of the public.

These advertisers repeat lies about how "you can win" at the lottery or casino or hyped up lies about magical replacements of merchandise "protecting" you, without telling the public that the more they spend on these deceptive ads the less they have for actual claims!

Judging by the propaganda that is repeated over and over again, without explaining the basics of gambling, advertisers or political manipulation it isn't unreasonable to assume that the reason why they don't explain it to uneducated people is because they're doing their best to use these propaganda tactics to manipulate them.

In addition to providing an incentive for hundreds of murders per year plus an enormous amount of additional fraud in other types of insurance, unlike a Single Payer system a for profit insurance declines to provide coverage for mentally ill people that would almost certainly prevent many crimes committed by them, perhaps including the following example:

Desmond Keith Carter March 9, 1992

Carter’s case represents a reality that few are willing to accept: the criminal justice system focuses overwhelmingly on the effects of violence and retaliatory measures, and insufficiently on the causes of violence and possible solutions.

Carter’s grandmother, who cared for him throughout his childhood and teenage years, recognized his substance abuse problems and sought medical assistance at Charter Hospital, a state mental health facility.

Despite her efforts, she had little success seeking treatment; the hospital rejected Carter because his family – which consisted of a mother who abandoned him and a father incarcerated for murder – could not afford adequate health insurance. A few weeks later, Carter, intoxicated with alcohol, crack cocaine, and tranquilizers, entered Purdy’s house in search of cash to buy more drugs.

Rather than execute another victim and ignore the issue of drug addiction, the state of North Carolina and the United States government should examine where along Carter’s path to violence it could have altered the course of events.

In this case, the government refused to provide affordable health care for a citizen oppressed since his early childhood, and its shortcoming resulted in crime. The death penalty will not stop the cycle of violence linked with poverty and oppression, because it fails to address the roots of the crisis. .....

Poverty played another important part in the saga. Carter, a drug addict who was under the influence of crack, alcohol and tranquilizers at the time of his crime, lived with his grandmother. Just days before the murder, the grandmother became so alarmed with Carter's erratic behavior that she tried to have him admitted to a local mental health facility.

But Carter was turned away because he didn't have insurance. The family's inability to access mental health treatment derailed an intervention that may well have saved Helen Purd's life. "Desmond tried to get help but was rebuffed," says Lloyd. "His impairment and the family’s efforts to address the problem need to be reconsidered." Complete article

It wouldn't be hard to find an enormous number of additional cases where serious crime could have been prevented by recognizing the root causes of violence and preventing them before it leads to murder of some other crime. In this case treatment just before the murder might have done the trick; however if we provide better child care education and other social programs to help it will prevent it from coming close to this.

The goal shouldn't be to maximize profits and growth for the insurance industry; it should be to minimize risk to the public by preventing causes of violence!

People who want to find this research can.

The current for profit system is far more concerned with maximizing profits by expanding their business without necessarily providing consumers with their money’s worth. In fact the more they minimize their pay outs for legitimate concerns the higher their profits are as long as they can avoid taking much if any blame for the crimes that are being committed either as a result of the incentives provided by insurance or the lack of real efforts to understand and reduce the root causes of crime.

A few other things that they fail to mention is as I pointed out in previous articles is that Police are often among the most common perpetrators of insurance fraud and as I pointed out in Life Insurance and media companies are encouraging lots of murders over two percent and perhaps as many as six to eight percent of the murders listed on Murderpedia involve a possibility, if not a guarantee, that a leading motive for these murders was life insurance. If this is representative of the typical murder rate then that means that between three and twelve hundred people are murdered each year partly as a result of their life insurance policies.

On top of that some of the people most likely to be involved in insurance fraud are often insiders or professionals that are either in the insurance industry or a related industry that deals with them on a regular basis. Below is a list of a small fraction of these insurance agents or other professionals including more than two dozen additional murders either carried out by insurance agents or other professionals or targeting them sometimes both. This is only a small fraction of the insurance fraud that happens every year.

My statistics about between two and eight percent of murders being committed partially for life insurance might be a little rough; however they're far better than any information that I can find from any of the so called experts. After searching for the percentage of people killed for life insurance the closest thing I could find was someone asking the same question, How many people get killed in hope of a life insurance payout? And how does it affect insurance policies? This question was only answered by professionals that obviously had an incentive to downplay the importance of this issue and minimize concerns about life insurance. They didn't even consider the possibility that they might do a statistical analysis of murders from either the records of the FBI or insurance companies.

You would think that criminologists might want to do this analysis, since the records will provide some sort of answer and they're in abetter position than I to do the work; but there seems to be little or none of this that I can find. Why don't they do statistical research to find out how many people are killed with insurance as a motive? how many of these murders actually result in payments from the insurance companies? how many professionals of various types are involved in it? There is data that can be found through the internet but it isn't nearly as good as what's in the FBI files or files that the insurance companies have which are almost certainly proprietary. If their files can be used to understand and reduce violence why should the law protect their secrecy instead of requiring disclosure? to help prevent those with political power profit at the expense of the rest of us?

Are the insurance companies powerful enough to minimize research into this subject? If they aren't why isn't much better research available?

We do have enough information to know that a lot of people did get away with murder at least for a while and collect from these policies, because in many cases they do it again and eventually get caught.

The insurance companies, politicians collecting donations from them, and media establishments collecting advertising revenue, are far more concerned with keeping people buying insurance and expanding this business as much as possible than they are with minimizing the crime they provide an incentive for, since they’re getting a cut of the loot!

As I pointed out in a previous article, Politicians increase crime; Grass roots efforts reduce crime; Politicians steal the credit on one issue after another when it comes to the contributing causes of crime there is almost always a way to reduce it; however there are also industries that profit off of it one way or another. One of the biggest contributing causes of crime is poverty but instead of trying to reduce that by reducing income inequality they continue supporting corporations that are involved in union busting activities outsourcing and other activities that ignore social problems, or what they call “negative externalities.” Supporting an incredibly corrupt insurance industry is another example of how politicians are far more concerned with serving the best interests of campaign contributors than they are with looking for the best interests of the public by educating them about the best research available and making their decisions based on that research.

The biggest criminals aren’t the insurance agents listed below that have been caught with blatant insurance fraud or the police that are also caught with enormous amounts of fraud or any other policy holder involved in fraud; it is the CEOs that are making enormous profits, and bribing politicians with what they call campaign contributions, and the media with advertising dollars, to ensure that neither of them let the majority of the public know how big a problem this is and how it can be prevented.

This doesn’t guarantee that Single Payer will eliminate all insurance fraud; at least one of the incidents listed below is Medicare fraud which is a government insurance system; but it would dramatically reduce many of them. Furthermore if they required full disclosure of all the information needed to understand how it contributes to crime then it could be greatly reduced, although some exceptions might be made to defend privacy, which can be done by changing some names.

A couple additional scams have been exposed in the following couple of articles:

The Life Insurance Industry’s Big Secret 12/04/2012

Life insurance industry under investigation 04/17/2016

When you take out a life insurance policy, you pay premiums in the expectation that when you die your spouse or your children will receive the benefit. But audits of the nation's leading insurance companies have uncovered a systematic, industry-wide practice of not paying significant numbers of beneficiaries.

In a little-known series of settlements, 25 of the nation's biggest life insurance companies have agreed to pay more than $7.5 billion in back-death benefits. However, about 35 insurance companies have not settled and remain under investigation for not paying when the beneficiary is unaware there was a policy, something that is not at all uncommon.

Kevin McCarty: The beneficiary never comes forward because he or she doesn't know the policy exists.

But the companies know, says Kevin McCarty, the insurance commissioner of Florida, who led the national task force investigating the industry. And the companies don't pay, he says, unless a beneficiary makes a claim.

Kevin McCarty: And what we found is that companies have actual knowledge in their files that people have died, yet they have neglected to initiate an investigation and pay the claim.

Lesley Stahl: So in other words, life insurance companies are failing to pay out death benefits when they know the person is dead, and they're claiming they don't know.

Kevin McCarty: In many cases, that has been exactly what we have found. Complete article

The following are reports of insurance fraud that are carried out with help from insurance agents or other professionals in related fields, starting with a couple dozen examples where either insurance agents were involved in murder or they were murdered. This may include some cases where the murders were to cover up other types of fraud:

Insurance Agent, Researcher Charged in Illinois Murder-for-Hire Scheme January 21, 2010

North Carolina Insurance Examiner Missing, Agent Arrested for Murder May 20, 2008

Convicted murderer David Duyst, who shot wife in 2000, denied a new trial 02/08/2011

Shawn Smoot Insurance agent indicted in murder of Knoxville woman set to turn himself in Monday 06/20/2012

Slain Sanford insurance agent's boyfriend Richard Barnes faces judge 12/09/2014

Joseph Caronna Tenn. Insurance Agent Goes To Trial In Murder, Fraud Case 10/25/2012

Insurance Agent Charged With Soliciting Customer's Murder 04/22/1988

Police: Two Louisiana fraud investigators killed; suspect, John Melvin Lavergne dead 06/08/2011

Ernest Basden and Sylvia White conspired to kill Billy Carlyle White who was an insurance salesman to claim life insurance benefits January 20, 1992

Albert Foulcher was convicted of the murder in 1993, at Pailhés near Montpellier, of another insurance agent - the man from whom he had bought a business in 1984. Committed five murders between January 19, 1993 and January 8, 2001 before committing suicide on January 17, 2001

Ralph Davis, an insurance broker, murdered Susan Davis, his wife in 1986. Between June and July 1986 Davis forged three checks on his wife’s personal bank account in the amount of $ 900 and also forged his wife’s signature on a change of beneficiary life insurance form to make himself the beneficiary of the policy.

Markham Duff-Smith, a 46-year-old insurance broker whose voracious thirst for the lavish lifestyle led to the murders of his wealthy mother, sister, brother-in-law and 14-month-old nephew, was executed on June 29, 1993. Murders to collect from estate not insurance.

Prosecutors argued Brenda Andrew also was having an affair with Rob Andrew's insurance agent, James Pavatt. Attorneys said Pavatt and Brenda Andrew conspired to kill Rob Andrew for an $800,000 life insurance policy on November 20, 2001 Little is known about James Pavatt's early life, although it is known that he was in the Air Force and served in Southeast Asia. He was attached to the Military Police. He was married to Suk Hui Pavatt for nine years before divorcing her in 2001. At that time he was working as an agent for Prudential Insurance. Former co-workers characterize him as very cold, and manipulative. One co-worker said there was something about Pavatt that struck him as "off-center". "He always talked about shooting dogs. Every time he saw a dog he would talk about shooting it," the man said. Someone else who knew Pavatt described him as "creepy."

Teresa Stone admits conspiring with her minister and lover to kill her husband, Independence insurance agent Randy Stone - To collect insurance money March 31, 2010

The Philadelphia poison ring was a murder for hire gang led by the Petrillo cousins, Herman and Paul Petrillo, in 1938. The leaders were ultimately convicted of 114 poison-murders and were executed by electric chair in 1941. Paul's cousin, Morris Bolber, was among the 14 others in the gang, all of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment. 05/1/2017 ... Paul ran an insurance scam business from the back of his tailor's shop ... The murders began in 1931, with Herman enlisting associate thugs to kill men he had arranged to insure, to collect on the double indemnity accident insurance.

Olen Edward Hutchison, of Campbell County, was convicted of conspiring with several other men, including M. C. Curnutt an insurance agent, to drown Hugh Huddleston during a fishing trip in 1988 to collect almost $800,000 in insurance money and other benefits.

Ruth Snyder first persuaded her husband to purchase insurance, but with the assistance of an insurance agent (who was subsequently fired and sent to prison for forgery) "signed" a $48,000 life insurance policy that paid extra ("double indemnity") if an unexpected act of violence killed the victim. March 20, 1927 Henry Judd Gray convicted of being her accomplice
Ruth Brown Snyder 05/0/2017

Debra Milke and her four-year-old son, Christopher, shared an apartment with co-defendant James Styers and his two-year-old daughter. While Milke worked at an insurance agency, Styers, an unemployed and disabled veteran, watched Christopher. December 2, 1989 In September, 1989, shortly after beginning a new job, Milke took out a $5000 life insurance policy on Christopher as part of her employee benefit plan. Debra Milke's sentence was overturned after she served twenty five years.
James Lynn Styers December 2, 1989

As a former prosecutor, part-time judge and prominent criminal defense attorney, Fredric Tokars worked on all sides of the criminal justice system. November 29, 1992 Unbeknownst to her, Fred Tokars took out several insurance policies totalling $1.7 million on Sara's life. Lawrence denied any involvement in the murder — by himself or by Fred Tokars — for about seven months. But after a plea agreement he claimed Tokars offered him $25,000 cash and a $910,000 investment in their joint business to arrange Sara Tokars' murder.

Ronald Mikos convicted for Killing a witness who was going to testify against him in a Medicare fraud investigation January 27, 2002 The same jury had on May 5, 2005 convicted Ronald Mikos of defrauding Medicare out of $1.2 Million by billing the Health and Human Services program from surgeries he never performed.

Masumi Hayashi is a Japanese woman convicted of putting poison in a pot of curry being served at a 1998 summer festival in the Sonobe district of Wakayama, Wakayama, Japan. July 25, 1998 After her arrest, she and her husband were indicted on a number of insurance fraud charges as well. Her husband was subsequently convicted and imprisoned for insurance fraud. Prior to the murders, Masumi had been an insurance saleswoman.

Pamela Ann Smart (née Wojas) (born August 16, 1967), is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder of Gregory Smart, an insurance salesman, and witness tampering in New Hampshire. 05/1/2017 Nicolosi claimed that Smart seduced Flynn to get him to murder her husband, so that she could avoid an expensive divorce and benefit from a $140,000 life insurance policy. .... Pam even agreed to pay them from the insurance money that she would collect.

Why dishonest claims turn violent 03/02/2017 Prentice Ponds, Michael Howell,

The following are additional examples of professionals, mostly insurance agents involved in other types of fraud.

Former Lincoln County commissioner sentenced in insurance fraud case 01/13/2017

Insurance Agents Charged In $100 Million Fraud Scheme 02/20/2012 In an indictment announced Feb. 16, federal authorities accuse three agents--Michael Binday, 48, the president and owner of a Scarsdale, N.Y. insurance agency; James Kevin Kergil, 57, an insurance agent based in Peekskill, N.Y.; and Mark Resnick, 56, an insurance agent based in Orlando, FL--of conspiring to defraud major insurance companies into issuing life insurance policies to straw buyers, when the true owners of the policies were third-party investors and financiers. All three agents have been arrested. In a statement announcing the indictment, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that the three insurance agents “concocted an elaborate scheme, using straw buyers and third-party agents, to deceive life insurance providers into issuing policies to unintended beneficiaries.

Insurance adjuster Jeffrey Cohen Sentenced to 37 Years in Prison in Massive Insurance Fraud Scheme 12/10/2015

Ramapo podiatrist Ira Bernstein admits plotting to kill wife 12/09/2016 Bernstein and his lover, Kelly Gribeluk, have now both admitted in Rockland County Court that they conspired to hire a local businessman to kill Susan Bernstein, as well as to have two insurance investigators beaten up to discourage them from bringing fraud allegations about Bernstein's podiatry practice to authorities.