Allianz detected claims fraud spanning its personal, commercial and specialty lines – where people deliberately inflate or invent insurance claims – worth more than £141m. Application fraud – deliberately providing false information when buying an insurance policy – topped more than £15m.
Fraud trends
Detection of application fraud continued to grow, with trends including increasing levels of policy abuse, misrepresentation and ID theft, including a high number of ghost brokers, resulting in a year-on-year increase in prevented fraud of 9%. Additionally, there was an increase in frauds involving moped and motorcycle riders, often connected to the delivery industry, trying to circumvent having the proper level of cover in place.
Across motor and casualty, trends included:
• A continued increase in the frequency of non-tariff injuries (injuries excluding soft-tissue/ whiplash claims) being claimed
• Moped riders and couriers inducing and fabricating incidents to make claims often called ‘cash-for-crash’ scams
• Professional enabler-led scams, where someone encourages or provides false evidence to support a bogus insurance claim.
• Continuation of noise induced hearing loss scams, including recycled claims, where one claim is declined, only for the claimant to try and claim again in a slightly different way.
Property insurance fraud has continued to see rises in fake and exaggerated theft claims, which in commercial lines was up by as much as 29% year on year. In personal lines, the introduction of voice analytics has uncovered opportunistic fraud, which may previously have gone unnoticed.
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.
“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.”
Fraud examples
Prosecuting fraudsters in £100,000 cash for crash case
In one case, Allianz UK and another insurer worked with the City of London Police to successfully prosecute three men in a £100,000 cash for crash fraud.
Two of the men deliberately staged a collision between two cars, including an Aston Martin, that they falsely stated was worth around £60,000, and went on to submit claims on insurance.
Inconsistencies between the trio’s accounts of the collision and the damage to the cars raised alarm bells and the case was referred to the City of London Police's Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) for investigation.
A jury at Gloucester Crown Court found the men guilty of fraud by false representation and perverting the course of justice following a three-week trial in August 2024.
£4,300 false claim for broken teeth
In one case, a claimant suffering whiplash injuries following a car accident later went on to claim dental injuries after claiming he hit the steering wheel. He claimed £4,300 for dental treatment after claiming he fractured two teeth and required root canal work and porcelain crowns.
His case went to trial, and it was pointed out that he had previously made no mention of damaged teeth during his original claim. During cross-examination, the claimant asked to discontinue the claim and agreed to pay costs.
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