Auto insurance rates in Nevada are in the top ten in the nation. There are many reasons why and fraud is one of them.

News 3's Sophia Choi and the Crime Tracker Team take a hard look at one type of auto insurance crime that is on the rise.

Facing a pile of debt and possible repossession, more and more people are trying to solve their car loan problems with matches. They think they can set a car on fire and file for the insurance.

One local woman tried to burn her payments away. However, she didn't escape the consequences.

"Three o'clock in the morning, my eyes come straight wide open. I don't know what to do. I walked into an AM-PM and bought a dollar's worth of gas. Two minutes after that, the car was on fire."

But the moment Betty Davis struck that match she knew it was a mistake. But she did it, in the dark of night in an alley, right next to the unknowing residents of an apartment complex.

"It was the most horrible thing I've ever done in my life. Boy, when I lit it... oh my God, it scared me to death. I'm surprised I have eyebrows! Or hair!"

And police are surprised no one was hurt.

"Being the fact that this car was burned in the middle of the night, people are in there sleeping, she put everybody in danger as well as the firefighters who put the fire out," says Detective Joe McGill, Metro Auto Theft Detail.

"It was a huge mistake," says Betty. "It didn't solve anything and I feel really bad about it. I just felt so stressed and I just didn't know where to turn."

Four months late on her car payments after losing her job, Betty says she just couldn't take what she refers to as harassing phone calls from bill collectors. She even saved one as a reminder.

"If it means embarrassing you at your job, that's what I'm going to do," says the collector. "I will send a constable to get this car, we will have it within 72 hours."

"I was... distraught," Betty recalls. "I was really, really desperate, hurt. You know, I felt at my wit's end. I was lost."

But police don't buy it. Detectives say this was a classic case of insurance fraud.

"The motivating factor here was she didn't want to hurt her credit," says Detective McGill. "She had a prior repossession on her history and she knew how it would affect her credit rating. And she didn't want that to happen."

Betty Davis' car now sits at an impound lot as evidence against her. And there is plenty of evidence; the entire inside is burned to a crisp.

Although the whole incident only took seconds, what Betty did to her future could have lifelong consequences.

"I was booked and put into the Clark County Detention Center," says Betty. "I spent the night in jail."

This is happening more and more throughout the valley. Metro officers say they have made nearly 350 arrests in the last three years. And they are no longer surprised by what kind of car is torched or who is doing it.

North Las Vegas Fire Captain Gary Stover is accused of torching his SUV last June. He's pleading not guilty.

And William Queen, a former Bullhead City Police officer, resigned after he was arrested for hiring someone to burn his car in Las Vegas. He is now facing arson and insurance fraud charges.

"They've just gotten themselves into a financial problem and they're just trying to find some way of getting out of it without damaging their credit," explains Detective McGill.

But Betty Davis, a grandmother, may now find herself serving serious prison time.

"Just doing something that dumb takes that all away from me because a felony charge is a felony charge, whether you meant it or not."

On that point, Betty is partially correct; she's charged with arson with intent to defraud an insurer. And in most cases, people are usually charged with three felonies: arson, insurance fraud, and filing a false police report.

But while you may understand the danger of setting a car on fire next to a building, why should you care if someone else sets their car on fire in the middle of the desert?

Because you pay for it: The payout on the average burned car is about $20,000 unless it can be proven that it is fraud. According to the Nevada Insurance Council, you pay your insurance company between $200 and $400 every year to cover the cost of auto insurance fraud.