An insurance body has taken another step in the fight against fraud through a new information campaign, encouraging consumers in British Columbia to do the right thing.
The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) recently launched an advertising campaign that highlights the serious nature and cost of insurance fraud.
Learn more about fraud insurance here.
“The goal of this information campaign is to show British Columbians that exaggerating an injury for financial gain is wrong,” ICBC Special Investigation Unit (SIU) manager Chris Fairbridge said.
According to data from the ICBC, fraudulent and exaggerated claims make up roughly 10- to 20% of all claims costs. Given such estimates, fraud is costing ICBC’s customers up to $600 million each year, translating to over $100 a year for each ICBC policyholder.
Last year, the insurer’s 2016 public information campaign led to a 70% increase to ICBC’s fraud tips line in the first quarter. In total, the fraud tips line in 2016 received almost 1,900 calls – a 66% increase over the volume of tips in 2015.
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“We want the public to better understand the role they can play so we can work together to best prevent fraud,” explained Fairbridge. “Tips help us take action by investigating suspicious situations in order to protect the majority of our customers who file honest claims.”
The SIU completed close to 10,000 investigations last year.
ICBC is anticipating fraud detection and enforcement activities to reduce its basic insurance claims costs by $21m for policies written over the next year. The insurer is also estimating that both activities, as well as use of the fraud analytics tool it rolled out last December, should help it save up to $44m a year by 2019.
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