Arizona Leads The Nation In Auto Glass Insurance Claims

By Scott Bourque
Published: Friday, February 21, 2020 - 9:07am

Arizonans made more than 590,000 auto glass insurance claims last year — that’s the most in the nation. Over the past four years, 10% of the nation’s auto glass claims came from Arizona.

Howard Handler, National Insurance Crime Bureau government affairs director, says these numbers raise fraud concerns.

“The fact that auto glass claims have increased 26% over the last five years suggests that there may be a rise in fraudulent activity in Arizona,” Handler said in a news release.

He says many consumers end up using shady glass repair companies. Some inflate the cost of repairs, directly bill the insurance company, and then collect the extra money for themselves. Others replace windshields that might not need to be replaced — or don’t do any repairs at all.

“In many cases, these fraudulent auto glass companies are convincing consumers to sign an assignment of benefits (AOB) form, which means you are giving the auto glass company the right to file an insurance claim, make the repairs and collect any insurance payments," he said. "This type of AOB abuse is a scam and must be stopped."

Between 2015 and 2019, Arizonans filed more than 2.6 million auto glass claims — more than Florida, California, Texas and New York.

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