Mike & Sarah Chen | Guardian Insurance Your local independent agents since 2014 (555) 867-5309 | [email protected]

Happy Wednesday! Quick one this week. We've got a poll to vote on, a wild claim story, a fraud case out of Maryland that'll make your blood boil, and the most terrifying scam we've ever heard of. Plus some fun stuff at the end that has nothing to do with insurance.

Let's go.

You tell us. Vote below.

A tourist in Bali set her handbag down outside a temple. A monkey grabbed it and took off running. Local kids chased the monkey to the edge of a cliff and tried to trade food for the bag. The monkey panicked and threw the purse over the cliff. Gone. Phone, wallet, hearing aids, cash. Total value: over $8,500.

She filed a claim with her travel insurance company.

Did they pay?

We'll share the results and the real answer next week. 👀

The Farmer, the Cow, and the iPhone

A livestock farmer in England was helping one of his cows through a difficult nighttime birth. It was dark, it was storming, and he was using his iPhone as a flashlight.

The phone slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the cow's... well, the business end of things.

The phone was eventually "returned" by the cow through natural processes. Shockingly, it no longer worked.

He filed a claim with his insurance company. They paid it in full. A brand new iPhone, courtesy of his policy and one very cooperative cow.

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That's the number of organized fake-accident fraud rings the National Insurance Crime Bureau helped bust in a single year. Not individual incidents. Entire networks of drivers, "witnesses," lawyers, and medical clinics coordinating staged crashes for payouts. Across dozens of states.

Every one of those rings drives up what you and I pay for car insurance.

Source: Mercury Insurance / FBI fraud data, March 2026

Here's one that should scare every homeowner.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, about 1 in 60 insured homes files a water damage or freezing claim every single year. It's the second most common homeowners claim behind wind and hail.

How much does the average water damage claim cost?

Answer: Right around $11,000. According to Travelers Insurance, the average non-weather water claim costs nearly $11,000. And that's the average. FEMA says just one inch of floodwater can cause $25,000 in damage. If mold gets involved, costs jump fast. If you need temporary housing while repairs happen, that adds thousands more.

The most common cause? Burst pipes and failed appliance hoses. A $15 braided stainless steel washing machine hose from Home Depot is the cheapest insurance policy you'll ever buy.

Source: Travelers Insurance

Insurance fraud adds roughly $700/year to your family's premiums. Here's one example why.

James and Maureen Wilson of Owings Mills, Maryland ran a $20 million insurance fraud scheme for 25 years. They opened more than 40 fake life insurance policies by lying about applicants' health, wealth, and existing coverage. They also conned investors into funding the premiums.

James got 12 years. Maureen got 4. Ordered to pay $16 million in restitution and forfeit $14.8 million.

One couple. Twenty million dollars. And every honest policyholder in their pool paid higher rates for a quarter century because of it.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, July 2025 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maryland-couple-sentenced-20m-insurance-fraud-scheme

The AI Voice Clone Kidnapping Scam

A Missouri mom named Rachel got a call from her college-age daughter's phone number. Her daughter's voice, crying: "Mom, I had an accident. I rear-ended somebody and they're taking me."

It wasn't her daughter.

Scammers had used AI to clone her daughter's voice from social media and spoofed her phone number. For nearly two hours, they convinced Rachel her daughter had been kidnapped. She wired thousands of dollars before her real daughter finally called on another line.

A cybersecurity expert demonstrated that it takes less than 10 seconds of someone's voice to create a clone convincing enough to fool their own family.

What to do right now: Set up a family code word. If you ever get a distress call, ask for the code word. No code word, hang up and call your family member directly.

Source: KPTV / InvestigateTV, March 2026

Your homeowners insurance does NOT cover floods.

Not even a little. If water rises from outside your home (swollen creek, storm drain backup, heavy rain pooling), your homeowners policy won't pay. You need a separate flood insurance policy, usually through FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program.

It's often only $400-700/year. But there's a 30-day waiting period, so you can't buy it when the storm's already coming.

The stat: One inch of floodwater = $25,000 in damage. And 25% of all flood claims come from areas considered "low risk."

Source: FEMA / National Flood Insurance Program

Things from this week that have nothing to do with insurance:

🐕 The internet's favorite story right now: Seven dogs went missing in rural China and were filmed walking home together along a highway, led by a determined corgi. The video got 230 million views. The real story (they followed a German shepherd in heat, not an escape from thieves) is somehow even better than the viral version.
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🍕 Caught on camera: A doorbell camera caught a neighbor's Golden Retriever named Maggie sprinting up to someone's porch and devouring an entire box of delivered pizza before anyone could stop her. The homeowner's reaction when she realizes what happened is perfect.
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🤖 This is wild: Anthropic just announced that their AI can now literally use your computer while you're away from your desk. Open apps, fill in spreadsheets, navigate your browser. In one demo, it exported a pitch deck as a PDF and attached it to a calendar invite. The future is getting weird.
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2-minute move: Pull out your phone, open the camera, and do a slow walk-through of your house. Open every closet, pan across every room, film your electronics, furniture, appliances. Upload the video to your cloud storage.

If you ever file a claim after a fire, theft, or major damage, this video is priceless. Adjusters need proof of what you owned, and most people can't remember half their stuff under stress. A 5-minute video solves that.

Thanks for reading! If anything in here made you think "wait, should I check my policy?" just reply. That's what we're here for.

Forward this to someone who needs to hear about the AI voice cloning scam. That one could save someone thousands of dollars.

See you next week,

Mike & Sarah Chen Chen Family Insurance (555) 867-5309