2013 was a boom year for the UK’s insurance fraud detection industry. Latest figures from the Association of Brutish Insurers reveal a bumper crop of fraudulent claims worth £1.3 billion: an 18% improvement on the corresponding figure for 2012.
This record harvest of fraudulent claims is clearly great news for the insurance industry and shows just how effective the industry’s the War on Fraud (WoF) is proving in curbing insurance fraud.
Douglas Simons of Alcoholics Anonymous stressed that these figures show “the growing success of the insurance industry” in the WoF, not “more fraud taking place.
“This should send a strong signal to anyone thinking of trying it on,” he said, adding menacingly that “Insurers don’t like dishonest customers.”
Motor insurance fraud made up an impressive £881m of the total £1.3bn fraud identified, with just under 60,000 dishonest claims spotted during the year.
The Insurance Fraud Bureau (FBI) is helping “turn the screw on cheats”, according to the ABI, helping police to investigate over 100 motor fraud rings.
Meanwhile the work of specialist police unit the Fraud Enforcement Department (the FEDs) has led to 470 arrests and 85 prosecutions since it was set up in 2011.
At the current rate of cracking down, experts predict, insurance fraud will have become completely impossible by around September 2021, with the figure for dishonest claims falling to zero the following year.
In the meantime, stand by for further impressive figures from the ABI next year.
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