SALT LAKE CITY — Insurance fraud costs Americans over $300 billion every year — and it’s growing.

In Utah, state investigators said half of their insurance fraud cases involve automobiles. These scams not only slow down legitimate claims, but they also jack up the premiums we pay for insurance.

“We’ve seen a steady increase over the years,” said Armand Glick, who oversees the Utah Insurance Department’s Fraud Division. “Since 2022, we’ve had an 80% increase in our referrals to our division for investigation.”

While staged accidents where criminals crash into unsuspecting drivers to make false claims do happen in Utah, Glick said most of the fraud is staged on paper in the form of false reports.

“They swerved to avoid a deer or an animal and struck a guard rail, or a hit and run in a grocery store parking lot,” Glick said of two common schemes his investigators hear.

But the biggest scheme they see, he says, is “crash and buy.” That’s where uninsured drivers buy a policy just after a crash.

“They’ll file the claim and they’ll represent that they were involved in the accident after they were insured,” said Glick.

Another common scheme involves drivers trying to lower their rates by lying about where the car is located, whether it’s used for ridesharing, or who regularly drives it. And one of the biggest increases they’ve seen lately is windshield fraud. That’s where people get insurance to cover a windshield that was already broken.

“Windshields no longer cost $300,” he said, “but they’re closer to $1,200 to $1,500.”

Whether it’s windshield fraud, a “crash and buy” or a staged collision, gaming the system causes everyone’s rates to go up.

“We pay $700 to $1,000 a year due to insurance fraud,” said Glick.

While staged accidents aren’t as common in Utah as others, it’s still possible to get caught up in one. Glick says if the other driver doesn’t want police called and insists on settling in cash that is a huge red flag.

Call police, take pics of everything. That includes photos of passengers of the car. Fraudsters like to add passengers in their claim.

Other reading: More from Matt Gephardt and the KSL Investigators

Former University of Washington defensive lineman Voi Tunuufi has died at the age of 23, the school announced on Monday night.

“Our hearts are with the Tunuufi family, his loved ones, and every brother who wore the W beside him. Forever in The Pack,” the school posted in an announcement on Twitter.

According to Andy Yamashita of The Seattle Times, Tunuufi’s sister, Sanita, said that he died in a car accident.

Tunuufi appeared in 52 games for the Huskies over four seasons from 2021-24, which included Washington’s run to the National Championship against Michigan in 2023. Tunuufi had 86 total tackles with 12.5 sacks, a forced fumble and two passes defended during his career.

MORE HUSKIES NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE

UW wide receiver, WA native Denzel Boston drafted 39th by Cleveland Browns

Ex-football player accused of posing as former UW QB Michael Penix, other NFL pros in $20M fraud case

Washington signs Tina Langley to extension as women’s basketball coach

Huskies AD Pat Chun talks coaching expectations in 2026

Washington’s upset bid of 3-seed TCU falls short in 62-59 loss in overtime

To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter.

Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.

At the anti-abortion March for Life rally in D.C. last year, Vice President J.D. Vance had a clear message.

“So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said to a cheering crowd.

As birth rates fall in the U.S., prominent conservatives such as Vance are encouraging Americans to have more children. They say that’s crucial to maintaining the nation’s workforce, so there will be enough caregivers for an aging population.

Now, those arguments are being cited to pass new state-level restrictions on abortion, including in Wyoming, which recently passed a law to outlaw abortions once there’s a “detectable fetal heartbeat.”

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it is “clinically inaccurate” to describe what can be heard via an ultrasound during very early pregnancy as a heartbeat. Cardiac cells in an embryo may exhibit electrical activity that is detectable, but there are no cardiac valves that could generate the sound that people know as a heartbeat.

The Wyoming law — which has now been temporarily blocked in court — prohibits abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, which is generally around the sixth week of pregnancy.

“We’re sending a message that children are important and that they’re the future,” said Republican state lawmaker and former nurse Evie Brennan.

“Without an up and coming population that grows up here that wants to stay here, then we just become a stagnant or an aging slash dying state,” she added.

Suzanne Bell, a demographer at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Wyoming’s tactic is unlikely to substantially grow its population.

“Imposing a ban on abortion is not going to transform the trajectory of a state’s fertility pattern,” Bell said.

She added that abortion bans can lead to a short-term population bump. Wyoming’s neighbor, Idaho, saw one after it instituted one of America’s strictest abortion bans in 2023.

“What that works out to in absolute terms is about 240 excess births,” Bell said.

But at the same time, researchers found Idaho was hemorrhaging healthcare workers. It now has 35% fewer OB-GYNs than before their law went into effect.

In Wyoming, population loss has been an issue for decades. Giving a tour to prospective students at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Claire Lane said there’s not a lot of industry here.

“ I feel like a lot of students don’t see a ton of opportunities maybe necessarily in their fields to work here in Wyoming,” said Lane, a college senior with purple-tipped hair.

She said she plans to stick around for graduate school in speech language pathology, but she’ll probably leave the state to find work.

“We do have a super small population, so a lot of students know that they might need to go somewhere else to find a job,” Lane said.

A 2024 Harvard Kennedy School working paper said by the time Wyomingites reach their thirties, nearly two thirds have left — one of the highest rates in the country. It said a lot of young people are leaving for cities, of which Wyoming has few.

“With bigger areas, there comes more unique people and more creative people,” said Aidan Freeman, a second-year music student at the University of Wyoming.

Sitting in the student union building, Freeman said he and his partner hope to move to Fort Collins, Colorado soon.

“Wyoming is very traditionalist in some ways,” Freeman said. “It is kind of a bubble.”

Researchers from Harvard recommended Wyoming invest in its rural areas, making them more economically diverse and investing in a supply of housing for young people.

Brennan said she knows the partial abortion ban, which she helped pass, is not the complete answer to growing Wyoming’s population. She said the pro-life movement also needs to start focusing on more long-term solutions.

“We have to send the message that not only are you important in utero, but you’re also important on day one when you’re born, like outside of utero,” Brennan said. “And I don’t know that the legislature has had good, robust conversations on what that looks like.”

Wyoming Republic state Sen. Evie Brennan

Dreaming Hollow Photography/Dreaming Hollow Photography

hide caption

Advertisement

toggle caption

Dreaming Hollow Photography/Dreaming Hollow Photography

Brennan said she hopes the legislature will evaluate the effects of the six-week abortion ban, but that depends on whether courts let it stand.

Pro-abortion rights groups challenged it soon after it passed. On April 24, a federal district court judge temporarily blocked the law, while litigation continues. That means abortion is once again legal in the state after six weeks.

Proceedings will continue at the district court level, and the judge will weigh in on the constitutionality of the law. That decision could then be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Earlier this year, that court struck down two more sweeping abortion bans in the state.