Survey: 8 percent admit to filing fraudulent insurance claims

According to a new survey by Experian (LSE: EXPN), almost one in ten adults - 8 percent - in the UK admit that they have filed a fraudulent insurance claim at one time or another. The survey, which was meant to discover how consumers feel about insurance fraud, shows that most people are aware of what insurance fraud is, and that they consider it to be a serious crime. In fact, 91 percent of respondents said that they consider it to be a serious offense. However, only 14 percent said that they would report insurance fraud that they became aware of, mostly because they consider it a crime against an organization rather than against any individual.

The survey also found that most people see insurance as costing a great deal but with benefits that are very rarely seen. Therefore, when they do make a claim, many are prone to exaggerate the seriousness of the claim because they want to get their money’s worth and believe that there is little likelihood of them getting caught. One of the reasons the respondents don’t believe they would be caught in an exaggeration seems to be that they don’t believe that the insurance companies do very much to fight fraud. Only 15 percent of those surveyed said they think the companies do enough to fight fraud, while 51 percent said that they don’t know if insurance companies do anything to detect fraudulent claims or not.

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