Do you know anyone who's been involved in an automobile accident and suddenly needed to wear a neck brace everywhere…except when no one else is around? Do you know anyone who's been injured on the job and, while he can't make it to work, can still accept his best friend's invitation for a weekend of skiing? These people are cheating insurance companies, and cheating insurance companies, also known as insurance fraud, is illegal.

Sadly, cheating insurance companies is a fairly common practice. People cheat other people's insurance companies by suing for injuries that didn't occur; hence the need for the neck brace. People cheat their own insurance companies, or the insurance companies of their employers such as worker's compensation, when they claim to be too injured to work but are actually well enough to do everything else.

People who cheat insurance companies aren't just cheating the insurance companies; they're also cheating everyone else who owns an insurance policy through that income. You see, insurance companies are so fed up with, and drained by, those who cheat them that the cost of insurance policies raises. That means while these people are busy cheating insurance companies, honest people are busy spending more money on insurance than they should have to spend.

Since cheating insurance companies has become such a fairly common practice, many insurance companies are cracking down by investigating the “injuries” much more thoroughly than ever. Some insurance companies hire private investigators to keep surveillance on those they think may be cheating their company. This can be a pretty effective way of cutting down on insurance fraud since most people don't expect an insurance company to go out of its way and fork over even more cash to have them investigated. Therefore, the people who are actually cheating the insurance companies freely enjoy their newfound money or free paychecks and make it much easier for the insurance companies to bust them.