TAMPA, Fla. -- Fourteen people linked to seven medical rehabilitation and diagnostic facilities have been charged with brokering patients for the purpose of defrauding auto insurance companies, Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher announced Friday.

Patients who were involved in auto accidents -- some of them staged -- were sold for up to $1,000 to the clinics for the purpose of billing auto insurance companies for medical evaluation and care, Gallagher said.

"These patients were auctioned off like art, and Florida consumers get the bill," he said.

Auto insurance fraud is estimated to cost the average Florida family as much as $240 a year in higher premiums and costs, he said.

A multi-agency investigation yielded the Tampa arrests, which began in December and continued Friday.

The patients were brokered to medical clinics that would bill auto insurance companies under the policy holder's personal injury protection, or PIP, coverage as much as $10,000 for treatment, the Department of Financial Services said.

The patients were then sold again for as much as $200 to diagnostic facilities for X-rays or MRIs, adding up to thousands more in auto insurance claims.

In the past five years, the department's Division of Insurance Fraud has arrested more than 800 people in connection with at least $23 million in Personal Injury Protection insurance fraud.

Patient brokering is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison per count.