After the bubble burst in the Irish economy and after a succession of harsh budgets people have been forced into adjusting their sometimes lavish lifestyles. We have all had to cut back a little.
Actually, there are still a number of people who refuse to quit their lavish way of life and will turn to crime to supplement their living. Insurance fraud is an area they tend to get caught up in. People see the rich bankers being let off the hook with golden parachute deals after messing up the country and they want their slice of the cake.
Most people think that it is only the poorer people in society that get up in insurance fraud. While this is often true there are large numbers of well off families embroiled in these illegal activities too. They wish to maintain a standard of living that they can no longer afford and in order not to ‘lose face’ with the neighbours they turn to insurance fraud to sort out their finance problems.
The Irish Insurance Federation is a representative body for insurance companies. They have identified the growing trend of insurance fraud and are battling hard to stop it. Michael Horan from the IIF states “there is definitely an increase in claims in the recession”.
Internal statistics show that the number of tip-offs to insurance fraud claims via a confidential phone line have increased by over 50% in the year 2009 when compared to 2008. These figures clearly highlight that there is something wrong. Numbers do not surge like this without a reason. The reason in this case is the recession. If the recession deepens then the insurance fraud levels are also likely to increase.
It has now been 10 years since the insurance industry began to focus strongly on preventing insurance fraud. A Database is kept by the Insurance Link and on this database are the details of repeat offenders. Insurance companies can check this database at any time. Nick Starling of the ABI says ‘Whether claiming against a third party for bogus personal injury or on their own insurance, fraudsters are more likely than ever to get caught, leading to more expensive and harder-to-obtain insurance and credit and the possibility of a criminal record’ .
Over the last year we have seen the introduction of savage cuts in the budget. This is highly likely to cause monetary problems for many families. Insurance fraud will be seen as one way out of a debt spiral. With the new insurance fraud detection measures that are in place it has hoped that this will deter these fraudsters in the future.
AXA focuses strongly on detecting insurance fraud. This helps us to bring you competitive car insurance quotes and commercial van insurance quotes.