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OFF BEAT: German agent tries his hand at insurance fraud

Posted On: Nov. 3, 2014 12:00 AM CST

An insurance agent in Germany was fingered as a fraudster when he tried to claim compensation for a bizarre “accident.”

According to the Daily Mail, a court in Norderstedt, Germany, heard that 50-year-old Ralf-Werner Dehmer claimed more than $1.5 million in compensation after severing a thumb and a finger.

In the weeks running up to the incident, Mr. Dehmer had taken out three separate insurance policies, each of which included specific clauses covering the loss of digits.

Mr. Dehmer claimed to have tripped over his dog and fallen into a circular saw resulting in the loss of a finger and a thumb.

Police and insurance investigators, however, suspected there was more to the incident, and their sleuthing revealed certain anomalies in Mr. Dehmer's account of the accident.

For example, the court heard, the rest of his hand was left relatively undamaged considering the severity of the incident.

A search of Mr. Dehmer's workshop failed to turn up the missing digits which his wife later claimed to “find” in the snow a week later.

Mr. Dehmer was convicted of insurance fraud and given a 22-month suspended sentence.