Honest Policy Holders Paying for Insurance Fraud:

In light of the article we published earlier this week, we felt that it was important to share the latest news concerning yet another economic crime situation that’s affecting Australia.

ABC News has released a story that doubles up on the facts we presented in our “Australia’s Appalling Economic Crime Situation” article, as recent findings within the insurance industry, most notably from IAG – the internationally renowned insurance provider, have revealed yet another horrifying statistic.

Premiums in Australia, across all policies, whether it be car, home, travel, health or any other type of insurance, are on the rise. Some policies have increased so much that many customers are pulling out all together, thereby jeopardising their own safety and indirectly destabilising their levels of protection when it comes to income, health, travel and vehicular accidents.

IAG’s report states that the insurance giant, along with many others within Australia, have experienced a 30% spike in suspicious claims over the last five months. New South Wales, alone, has seen a 39% increase in compulsory third party insurance claims, despite a significant drop in the number of road casualties.

As such, the New South Wales Government has initiated a CTP (Compulsory Third Party Insurance) fraud task force to investigate and attempt to address the issue. With that, David Hertzell who led a similar task force in the United Kingdom, has been brought into Australia to assist IAG with the investigations.

Mr Hertzell is quoted on defining two key “types” of fraudsters associated with the spikes; “You either have people who are organised fraudsters, who are seeking to make money out of insurance as part of their business activities in a way [,] and you have people who are opportunistic, who aren’t necessarily dishonest people, but on the spur of the moment they become dishonest.” He goes on, “Sometimes they don’t trust big companies, they’ve paid premiums for a long time and they feel society owes them something back.”

Again backing our previous article, Mr Hertzell went on to clarify that motor accidents and personal injury claims are two of the biggest profiles that have seen drastic increases in fraudulent claims, within Australia, in recent months.

What does all of this mean?

Ultimately, insurance companies are not the ones who foot the bill when fraudulent claims are successful. Instead, the companies providing insurance to the average Joe incorporate those losses into the price of their policies’ premiums, which is why there has been such a significant increase in insurance costs.

Added to this, David Hertzell feels that Australia is still ill-equipped to handle insurance fraud appropriately, most likely due to the fact that most insurers deal with their particular claims independently and fail to share information with each other. This, in turn, leads to each individual provider failing to understand the “bigger picture” and thereby failing to react to widespread insurance fraud properly.

The result? The ongoing rise in third party insurance premiums will eventually lead to people being “priced out of third party cover,” leading to an increase in uninsured drivers – “Or, in the end, the state has to step in and fund it all,” ends Mr Hertzell.

Precise Investigation are specialists in helping insurance providers across Australia to successfully tackle suspicious claims. We’ve been in the industry long enough to know what both insurance companies and their customers expect when it comes to running a suspicious claim investigation appropriately, and we’ve gone on to deliver outstanding results and receive exceptional feedback in every case.

To have us work with you, as a means to help reduce the risks associated with fraudulent claims, minimise the need for rising premiums and ultimately help to protect honest policy holders:

Call Precise Investigation today on 1300 856 011 for a professional private investigation service.

Precise Investigation has offices across every state in Australia, with operatives working most frequently across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Adelaide. Our team demonstrates unrivalled expertise across all of our professional investigation services and Precise Investigation is proud to offer Australian Insurers some of the most effective investigative solutions available to the country. Get in touch with us today and see what we can do for you.