Opinion: Are brokers ducking ‘responsibility’ to tackle insurance fraud?

Here at Insurance Times, helping the UK general insurance industry (UKGI) tackle sector-wide fraud through information sharing and awareness raising is of paramount importance.

Putting aside the moral correctness of such actions, insurance fraud puts industry firms out of pocket – ABI data published in September 2024, for example, revealed that detected fraudulent claims cost its insurer members £1.1bn in 2023.

This is further supported by statistics published by insurer Allianz in February 2025, which recorded detected insurance fraud amounting to £157.24m across its books of business in 2024.

Organisations such as the ABI and Insurance Fraud Bureau estimate that insurance fraud adds around £50 to home insurance premiums too, meaning genuine policyholders often pay the price for fraudsters’ criminality.

According to delegates of Insurance Times’ quarterly Fraud Charter roundtable, sponsored by Carpenters Group, a weak link in UKGI’s counter fraud armour and battle strategy, however, is brokers – particularly commercial lines brokers or those that have delegated authority relationships.

At last month’s virtual get together on 10 June 2025, Fleur Lewis, head of application fraud at Covéa Insurance, advocated for “a regulatory shift” in order to place “more focus on intermediaries rather than just the insurers” when it came to identifying and addressing insurance fraud.

She said: “I just don’t think [brokers] see it as their responsibility in some way. [Many brokers have an] ‘it’s not our problem’ attitude. That’s where there needs to be more focus from the regulator on intermediaries.”

Although Covéa Insurance has sought to improve fraud data collection and conversations between its staff and the insurer’s broker partners through “refreshing our terms of business agreements” – covering service and onboarding controls, for example – and introducing new standards on what the firm expects from its broker relationships, Lewis added that broker management systems, technology platforms and software houses have a role to play here too.

Too often, she noted that she had received feedback such as “our system doesn’t allow us to do that” or “we don’t capture that data” when trying to assess particular fraud metrics in collaboration with brokers.

“We need a collective voice here to get a shift in the broker industry,” Lewis emphasised.

She did concede, however, that brokers operating in the personal lines market are “probably better” at dealing with fraud and are “engaging more” on this than their commercial counterparts – even though this activity is still “not where we want them to be right now”.

Lewis added: “My biggest concern is the commercial industry.”

Unfortunately, Fraud Charter delegates have been reporting a lack of broker engagement in tackling fraud for a while now – I first wrote on this challenge back in March 2024, for example.

If UKGI cannot get a grip on escalating insurance fraud through sector specific approaches and collaboration, then regulators such as the FCA will have no choice but to step in – and do we really need another regulatory rollercoaster to contend with, just when the FCA is committing to streamlining its rulebooks?

Donna Scully, Carpenters Group director, summed up the motivations for greater broker counter fraud involvement: “Fighting fraud unites all of us. It impacts us financially, it impacts us reputationally. We’re handing money to people who don’t deserve it.”

Do you agree with the Fraud Charter’s view? Get in touch and let me know.