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British insurance giant Aviva, which is currently investigating 1,800 suspect liability claims, has seen a 20% increase in the value of fraudulent liability claims in 2018. These include bogus slip-and-trip accidents made against employer’s liability and public liability insurance policies.
Releasing the full-year data from the insurer’s UK general insurance claims fraud intelligence team, Aviva said it detected nearly £14 million of such scams with the average fraudulent liability claim worth more than £14,000.
Across all lines of business, the insurance provider said it uncovered fakes worth £220,000 every day – detecting suspect or proven fraudulent general insurance claims worth £80 million in 2018. The figure represents an 11% decline from the previous year.
In addition, the values of both whiplash fraud and organised fraud (e.g. crash for cash) detected by Aviva went down 10% and 12.5%, respectively. Almost 13,000 suspect motor injury claims are being probed by the firm, which said motor insurance accounts for 66% of all suspected or proven fraud detected by Aviva.
Meanwhile the enterprise now screens all its personal and commercial motor insurance business to prevent fraudsters from purchasing policies and going on to submit fraudulent claims – investing significantly in prevention at the point of quote and sale.
“We are pleased to see that the continued investment and focus we have given to prevention and detection is starting to reduce the impact of fraud for our genuine customers,” said Tom Gardiner, head of fraud at Aviva UK General Insurance.
“However, that doesn’t change the fact that insurance fraud is still a major issue for customers, with over £80 million of suspect or proven claims fraud detected in 2018, 17,000 total suspect claims under investigation, and 16,700 instances of policy fraud. So we must remain vigilant to new threats and continue to defend our honest customers against the cost of fraud.”
Gardiner noted that Aviva is also working hard to ensure that there are consequences for the perpetrators.
“We have 172 cases currently under investigation with the police, and last year we worked with enforcement agencies to help to prosecute 58 instances of fraud, securing custodial sentences of over 68 years – which we hope will serve as a strong deterrent to people considering insurance fraud in future,” he added.
In a separate development, last week the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) was joined by the likes of insurers, brokers, loss adjusters, regulators, and forensic experts at West Midlands Police Museum for the force’s inaugural industry debrief event following the conclusion of the IFED’s biggest commercial property fraud case.
