Synopsis
Accidentally on Purpose is the first book to document the making of America's most peculiar criminal underworld. Not centered on the traditional activities of organized crime, this improbable underworld has been built from the raw material of faked personal injuries.
Reviews
At half the length this would have been twice as interesting, for Dornstein gets buried under the avalanche of material he amassed and seems to have lacked editorial help in digging out. A first-time author, he's a writer of talent who knows how to build tension, but the reader's initial wonder at the ingenuity of the insurance scams presented ultimately gives way to tedium at their sameness, even at the self-mutilations that seem the common coin of insurance fraud. Dornstein, who became a private investigator of suspected staged accidents after graduating from Brown in 1991, presents a scholarly history of the subject, going back a century to detail the operations of ship scuttlers and arsonists, Workmen's Comp swindlers and the like, and then focuses on today's freeway "swoops-and-squats," i.e., staged crashes. Los Angeles is the capital of America's personal injury "underworld," according to the author, with an estimated 10,000 fraudulent claims filed annually. Not an underworld in the sense of being controlled by organized crime, scams are most often initiated by neighborhood hustlers or confederations of doctors and lawyers. The so-called accident victims are cheaply hired to sustain or fake injuries. And although individual claims are paltry, in the aggregate they amount to an estimated $1 billion annually. The lure of easy money, Dornstein concludes after pondering the self-evident, is probably the motivation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This thoroughgoing, even encyclopedic, history of insurance fraud in America is a first-rate, ripping yarn. With its machines and speed and bustle, the Industrial Revolution saw a horrendous rise in accident rates. Train wrecks, street-car collisions, the dangerous chaos of the city, all spawned an almost endless series of mishaps. As Dornstein (a young, former private investigator specializing in insurance scams) ably demonstrates, it wasn't a far step from genuine accidents to the emergence of increasingly sophisticated and outrageous fakery--the money was just too good. He presents a Damon Ruyonesque cast of colorful rascals, from apple-peel specialists (dropping fruit peels and slipping profitably) to floppers, tumblers, and whiplashers. To make claimed injuries even more convincing, there were always ``Houses of Pain,'' where specialists would add bruising, scraping verisimilitude to a hustle. By the turn of the century, faking injuries was a big and professional business. At the bottom of the rung were the ``victims,'' often recent immigrants eager for a few extra dollars. Above them were the cappers, who arranged and packaged the cases and brought them to corrupt doctors and lawyers. While enforcement, particularly undercover investigation, has been stepped up in recent years, this underground system still generates billions of dollars in fraudulent insurance claims every year. Dornstein believes insurance companies should shoulder some of the blame; their aggressive marketing of new types of insurance policies (life insurance was once unheard of) created opportunities for fraud and reinforced the idea that someone should always be held financially responsible for accidents. And if payouts got too expensive, it was easy enough to raise premiums. Given the importance of the insurance industry to his history, Dornstein doesn't give it sufficient depth and due, the only significant oversight in this otherwise magnificently complete compendium. A bright spotlight cast on some very murky doings. (b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
This book is a well-researched, fascinating review of the world of faked personal injuries. The author graduated from an Ivy League college in 1991 and then spent a short time working as an investigator of questionable injury cases in Los Angeles. He recounts his experiences and interviews some of the participants in a nationwide epidemic of greed and deception. Dornstein traces the historical origins of false personal injury claims to ship scuttlers in the early 1800s, who would overinsure their vessels and then wreck them to reap the insurance benefits. From ship scuttling to speculation on the lives of strangers to rigged car accidents, the world of faked injuries revolves around insurance claims. The author does suggest solutions but lays the blame on American culture, which encourages accident victims to cash in. For general collections.?Harry Charles, St. Louis, Mo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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