Insurance fraud has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. costing Americans billions of dollars every year in the form of higher premiums and higher prices for goods and services. Industry estimates on the out-of-pocket costs of fraud for the average American household range from nearly $1,000 to $5,000 a year. Fraud perpetrators vary widely in age, income, occupation, race and other demographic attributes, making them difficult to categorize. Fraud perpetrators are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their methods, using the Internet, for example, to devise more complicated fraud schemes.”]