The website BalancingEverything.com has an interesting article on insurance fraud. Check it out with the link at the bottom of this page. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Insurance can be an amazing tool to protect your assets and integrity. Unfortunately, given the nature of this type of contract, abuse and fraud are fairly common. That’s why we prepared a list of insurance fraud statistics to show you the dark side of this industry. Read on to stay in the loop of the most common schemes and cons people apply to take advantage of the insurance system at home and abroad.
Insurance Fraud Statistics
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- Insurance fraud costs Americans more than $80 billion annually.
- 76% of Americans are more likely to commit insurance fraud while the economy is declining than when it’s growing.
- In 2020, over 500 medical insurance scams were recorded.
- 94% of American businesses have worker’s compensation insurance.
- In Germany, insurance fraud costs around €4 billion ($4.67 billion) annually.
General Insurance Fraud Statistics
1. It’s estimated that insurance frauds cost American consumers over $80 billion per year.
FBI estimates place the cost of non-health insurance fraud at $40 billion per year. To put things into perspective, this means that each American family loses between $400 and $700 per year in increased premiums.
(InsuranceFraud, MutualBenefitGroup)
2. Almost one in four Americans believe lying to an insurer is acceptable.
Just under a quarter (24%) of those surveyed by the Insurance Research Council said increasing a claim by a small amount to make up for deductibles is okay. Insurance fraud statistics also show that 10% of Americans think that insurance company fraud does not hurt anyone while 86% of them know that a fraudulent insurance claim leads to higher rates for everyone. Furthermore, 18% think increasing a claim to make up for premiums paid in previous years is also acceptable.
(InsuranceResearch, GovInfo, InsuranceJournal)
