Insurance fraud is something any company that deals with vehicles can expect to run into at some point. Some of the attempts at it are so bizarre, however, that they warrant special attention, even in a year where bizarre has been the order of the day.

SGI has released a list of their top five insurance fraud attempts, as they do annually. The attempts range from almost comically badly thought out to genuinely eye-popping, but SGI will be the first to tell you there's nothing funny about the fraud attempts themselves.

“When you lie about an insurance claim, you’re committing insurance fraud,” said Penny McCune, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Auto Fund. “The truth is those lies have real consequences. It starts with the denial of your claim, leaving you on the hook for thousands of dollars. Those lies could also land you in legal trouble, because insurance fraud is a crime.”

These incidents are all investigated by a Special Investigation Unit for SGI, many members of whom are former law enforcement professionals. The SIU closed 1,700 files last year, though not all were fraudulent.

One of these incidents featured a young woman who had been pressured into telling the police she was driving after a crash into what SGI described as "a large, well-marked, construction zone hole". The young woman recanted her story several times, eventually leading police to charge a man in the car with making a false statement and driving while suspended.

In the second case, a woman tried to pass off her vehicle as having been stolen. An investigation, however, found that she had taken her vehicle to the shop for a mechanical issue, and refused to pay the invoice, leading to her vehicle being locked in the shop’s compound until it was released by court order. She then tried to sell the vehicle, only to be told it had too many issues. Her Wile-E Coyote solution to this was to drive the vehicle to an 80-foot cliff and push it over the edge.

A third claimant tried to convince SGI his vehicle had been stolen while he was away with the only key, and the vehicle was subsequently involved in a hit and run. He claimed to have bought the vehicle from a person who was not the registered owner by trading a video game console and about $2,000 which was well below the market value of the SUV in question.

His story unravelled still further when SGI realized he had not reported the vehicle as stolen to the police. He also said he'd been at home with his wife at the time but was proven to not have a wife. It turned out a friend of his with a suspended licesnse had been driving.

Claim number four also claimed their vehicle was stolen. This one proved even less believable than the previous claim, however, as it was proved the vehicle in question had been exported out of the country years prior.

Finally, after a tractor was heavily damaged in a fire, the claimant's parents contacted the brokerage, where they learned of a 30-day acquisition clause that extends coverage to any newly acquired machinery. After learning of this clause, the parents later let SGI know that their son had recently purchased the tractor from them, providing a hand-written bill of sale conveniently dated within the 30-day clause. They also stated a down payment had been made of some livestock, with the remainder to be paid at a later time, so no actual cash had traded hands. The young man withdrew his claim.

To report suspected insurance fraud, contact SGI at siu@sgi.sk.ca or 1-800-667-8015, ext. 6887.