Sector must take counter fraud messaging and education ‘to another level’

The insurance industry’s perennial battle against fraud has been fought with many weapons. 

Targeting insurance fraudsters and their enablers with enforcement action can be effective, as can detecting application fraud via trained operatives and cutting edge technology. 

Arguably the most effective way to prevent insurance fraud, however, is to stop it at source by helping potential victims to spot red flags and avoid the most common scams. 

Attendees at the most recent Fraud Charter roundtable – held on 10 June 2025, hosted by Insurance Times and sponsored by law firm Carpenters Group – noted that collaborative industry education campaigns were becoming increasingly important in the fight against fraudsters, especially as criminals become more savvy in their use of social media. 

Ursula Jallow, director at the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), told the gathered counter fraud experts: ”From an IFB perspective, we are certainly looking to do more campaigns around public awareness. 

“Over the last three years or so, we’ve been running computer-based training for IFB members and their staff, but what we want to start doing going forward is looking to work with government around bringing information on fraud into personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) classes.” 

Jallow added that part of the IFB’s focus around combating ghost broking was targeting 17-year-olds that were just learning to drive, as well as the parents of these teens. 

Ghost brokers – individuals or organised criminal gangs that imitate legitimate brokers to sell fraudulent insurance policies – often target cash strapped young people, often via social media, to sell cheap but fraudulent insurance policies. The IFB hopes that educating both young people and their parents on this type of fraud can help nip it in the bud.

Jallow explained: ”Part of the prevention campaigns at the moment has been getting the message out to target audiences that fall victim to some of these scams. But the point we want to get to now is speaking to the influencers of those 17-year-olds, like parents and grandparents. 

”These prevention campaigns are very much a collaborative effort in terms of what the content should be and, from an IFB perspective, the intent is to take it to another level going forward.” 

The IFB’s prevention campaigns include online advertisements across social media that warn of the dangers of common types of insurance scams, including ghost broking, paid ad spoofing and crash for cash schemes.  

School engagement

Outside of the digital arena, where many ghost brokers market their services and lure victims into buying invalid policies, counter fraud experts at the Fraud Charter event further noted that in-person engagement with schools was an effective tactic for educating younger people about the dangers of insurance fraud. 

Fleur Lewis, head of financial crime and operational oversight at Covéa Insurance, explained: “We’ve already engaged with a few schools and universities to pre-plan dates for the next school year, so that we can go in and talk to people. We want this to be a bit of an education piece, but also to show the impact of what [ghost broking] might mean for them should they have a claim.”

Covéa Insurance had targeted these visits in regions identified as hotspots for fraud based on its own data, but Lewis explained that she and the firm were looking to collaborate on this initiative with others in the counter fraud industry to increase the strategy’s effectiveness.

Chris O’Donovan, detective inspector at the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (Ifed), noted that the force additionally planned to perform educational outreach activities in schools based on its data of fraud hotspots. 

He said: ”In maximising Ifed’s new and existing partnerships to disrupt and deter insurance fraudsters, we’re very much trying to get the message out there as to what we do and how we work.

”We want to be driven by analytics, so we’re identifying hotspots [of fraud activity] and then trying to understand why those hotspots are being targeted.

”Nelson in Lancashire was one hotspot we identified, so we’re working with local establishments there and we’re going to be going into colleges in that area to target those late teens and parents [with communications].

“What is very much linked into that is us increasing the activity out of Ifed with regards to messaging – it comes under our [goals to prevent fraud] and we’re going to increase our media footprint on social media and through more traditional aspects.”

The power of communication

Informing the public of common scams and tactics via targeted media campaigns can be effective in helping to prevent fraud, but there is another important, secondary impact related to this activity.

Counter fraud experts at the Fraud Charter noted that recent media campaigns have helped to shift the political landscape, with Westminster now sitting up and taking notice of the scale of the insurance fraud problem.

Mark Allen, chief fraud and financial crime officer at the ABI, explained: ”Traditionally, it’s been quite difficult to get traction with government on insurance fraud, but recently it included a short piece on ghost broking as part of the current phase of the Stop, Think, Fraud campaign.”

In October 2024, the Labour government also announced what it called a “major new crackdown on insurance fraud” with the launch of its new Insurance Sector Fraud Charter (ISFC). 

This new charter is a voluntary partnership between the government and both the private and public sectors, chaired by government fraud minister Lord Hanson. Signatories pledge to support law enforcement body the National Crime Agency in its review of professional fraud enablers as well as the agency’s work to tackle ghost broking, among other initiatives. 

Greater government attention on fraud may now be influencing the UK’s judiciary to take the issue more seriously too, with O’Donovan adding that Ifed had recently seen success in securing multiple custodial sentences for fraud related offences since the start of 2025.

He said: ”There has been a perception of a lack of custodial sentences for fraud related offences, specifically ghost broking. But I’m pleased to see that tide is turning and hoping it’s the judiciary following on from the government messaging on understanding fraud’s impact on the public, rather than just a blip.” 

Experts at the Fraud Charter were positive about the impact this ramping up of industry-wide collaborative educational campaigns was already having – but agreed that momentum could not slow down after some initial success. 

Indeed, much more work is needed to truly educate the public on the dangers of insurance fraud – and counter fraud experts agreed that this had to be collaborative.