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Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler wants to create a new fraud unit to investigate staged traffic accidents. Those can involve a network of lawyers, doctors, chiropractors and physical therapists.

Kreidler says he’ll request about $2 million in funding from the Legislature to create a five-person insurance fraud unit in his department. He says 41 other states have such fraud units.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates that Washington insurers paid more than $404 million in bogus claims in 2004. That figure is based on what the industry believes is a standard 10 percent fraud rate in claims.

Topics Fraud Washington