Ahmedabad: One family, five accidents in a day; Insurance plot thins

AHMEDABAD: Initially it appeared misfortune had rammed this Gujarat family, causing five of its members to meet with accidents on the same day, but investigations revealed that the crashes were orchestrated to make a fortune from insurance claims.
A 40-year-old man from Rajkot and four of his kin had reported that they were victims of accidents at separate places. They were driving separate cars too, but all the calamities occurred on the same day — December 31 last year.
The family had in March this year filed insurance claims with different companies. Two insurers sensed a theatrical spectacle in the tragedies and submitted applications to police in Rajkot, Amreli, and Ahmedabad to probe a potential attempt to defraud them.
Sources in Gujarat Police and the insurance companies said that Tarun Kantaria, his brother-in-law G D Rathod, Tarun's brother Kaushal, his cousin Gagan Kantaria and his wife Bhoomi had bought different vehicles in November 2021.
The family had taken insurance policies that covered high-end cars, premium sedans, and SUVs. Together, they had paid an annual premium of about Rs 68,000. After the ‘accidents', their total payout claim was Rs 80 lakh.
In January this year, they again bought five vehicles, insured them, and sought about Rs 40 lakh for damages caused in accidents. This time, the private insurance company concerned refused to pay the amount as the family did not produce the original purchase documents. But the family filed a police complaint and got the amount sanctioned.
An insurance firm assessor told TOI: "After that development, we submitted pleas to police to probe the case." He added: "We found that in all the so-called accidents, the damage had been done by an earthmover."
Sources in Rajkot and Amreli police said that this seems to be an emerging modus operandi to claim insurance payouts using second-hand cars.
"We have recently come across several cases in which a person buys a second-hand car, takes the highest possible insurance on it, then damages it in a fake accident to claim the full payout," said a police officer. "Such people take help from professional drivers, insurance firm employees, and operators of earthmovers to make the accidents look real."
The Kantarias too had hired such a team on the same day. The catastrophe was too good to be true in this case.
In an unrelated case, a complaint was recently filed with Ahmedabad Police after a man threatened an assessor for denying a claim on an accident.
A source in the Ahmedabad Police said: "These cases are reported often in Saurashtra and Surat." Now, police may take the help of insurance companies to probe dodgy cases.