The driver has been accused of deliberately crashing the Bugatti to collect payments.
A Texas man is making insurance news in a fraud case in which he has been accused of deliberately driving his rare, $1 million Bugatti car directly into a lagoon in order to be able to collect on his policy.
The lawsuit was filed against the man by the insurer that was covering the vehicle.
The driver of the car, Andy House, crashed the car three years ago, but the court case has only just come back to make insurance news. At the time, House informed the police that he had dropped his cell phone while he was driving down a Houston area highway. He said that by the time he glanced up again, there was a pelican in front of the car and he swerved to avoid, ending up inside a lagoon located in Galveston.
Further insurance news was made when it was discovered that the crash was caught on tape.
A number of other motorists who were in the area at the time were interested in the 2006 Bugatti Veyron, as it is an expensive and rare vehicle. They recorded the entire accident on video and it has since been posted by several individuals on YouTube.
According to Bugatti Beverly Hills general manager, Tim O’Hara, “The Bugatti is one of the rarest cars in the world produced today.” He added that “What makes them so expensive is the technology involved in building it.”
Only three weeks ahead of the crash, the insurer, the Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Co. had sold a policy for the vehicle worth $2.2 million. This car was one of only a few hundred that were ever built. The insurer is now making insurance news by using the famous YouTube video as evidence, as it clearly shows that there was no pelican in front of House at any point when he swerved into the lagoon.
The insurance news being made by the insurer and that is central to the case that will be before the courts this month is that they believe that House, the owner of the Performance Auto Sales company, had not made any attempt to brake, and that he “intentionally drove the Bugatti into the lagoon to destroy the car and collect proceeds approximately twice the value of the car.”