A third of UK companies have no insurance for fraud or economic crime, despite 70% of them reporting they have been subject to economic crime in the past two years.
And in Europe, more than half of the companies surveyed have been victims of economic crime.
This has cost businesses E3.6bn (£2.2bn) over the past two years. The average cost per company was E6.7m (£4.2m).
The findings come from Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC) European economic crime survey. PWC based the survey on 3,400 interviews conducted across central and western Europe.
Partner at PWC's forensic services group, Andrew Gordon, said while companies needed to be appropriately insured against economic crime, insurance did not need to be the only way of dealing with it.
“Insurance can be viewed as a hedge, but companies should also have appropriate controls in place and know where the threats are,” he said.
Preventative measures include constructing a detailed fraud response plan to help mitigate loss, proactive monitoring, setting up a whistleblower mechanism, effective personnel policies to aid internal investigations and a clearly communicated policy of zero tolerance towards fraud.
