’Insurance fraud is a serious problem that pushes up the cost of policies for honest consumers and adds to insurers’ costs,’ says director of fraud
Allianz UK detected £157.24m in fraudulent claims during 2024, an increase of 10% from £142.38m in 2023.
The insurer said the latest figure was equivalent to 90 frauds worth £430,000 a day.
Incidents were detected across personal, commercial and specialty lines, with fraudsters inflating or inventing bogus claims worth more than £141m.
Meanwhile, application fraud, which is deliberately providing false information when buying an insurance policy, topped more than £15m.
Ben Fletcher, director of fraud at Allianz UK, said: “Insurance fraud is a serious problem that pushes up the cost of policies for honest consumers and adds to insurers’ costs.
“The vast majority of claims are genuine and our focus as a business is to ensure we settle those promptly, but the sad reality is that some people will go to enormous lengths to make fraudulent claims.
“The increase in the amount of fraud can be attributed to several factors. The ongoing cost of living challenge and financial struggles people are facing is driving some people to commit insurance fraud.”
Trends
The insurer also noted several trends it had seen across several lines in the past year.
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Read: Fraud in H1 2024 being driven by casualty and ‘large increase’ in commercial claims – Allianz
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For example, across motor and casualty, it found a continued increase in the frequency of non-tariff injuries being claimed, continuation of noise induced hearing loss scams, as well as moped riders and couriers inducing and fabricating incidents.
Property insurance fraud, meanwhile, has continued to see rises in fake and exaggerated theft claims, which in commercial lines was up by 29% year-on-year.
However, Allianz said that in personal lines, the introduction of voice analytics “has uncovered opportunistic fraud, which may previously have gone unnoticed”.
Fletcher said: “We are resolute in our determination to identify and defend against any type of fraud and use a variety of methods to detect it.
”We share information with the police and other insurers to prevent fraud happening and will not hesitate to prosecute cases.
“Potential fraudsters need to understand that if you try and commit fraud, then be warned, you may end up with a criminal record.”
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