Hurricane Sandy killed 116 people and caused $60 billion worth of damage in 2012. Thousands of families who survived Sandy say they’ve been hit by a second powerful wave – fraud. Some engineering reports were altered and/or rewritten, claiming the damage done after Sandy was “unrelated” to the storm. Why? So the insurance companies (who pay the engineers) didn’t have to pay the full amount of insurance owed to policyholders.
As the New York Times explained in February 2015, “the revised reports reinforce long-held suspicions that insurers and their partners often collude against homeowners.” Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York started a criminal inquiry as did FEMA, the government agency which ultimately pays out the claims through the National Flood Insurance Program. The National Flood Insurance Program, by the way, is currently $23 billion in debt to the US Treasury. 60 Minutes airs its own investigation on June 7, 7pm on CBS.
