Blurring Distinctions: should innocent insureds be tarred with the same brush as their fraudulent agents?

The subject of insurance fraud is increasingly problematic. In 2011 there were a staggering 139,000 fraudulent claims detected in the UK. This saved the industry from paying out approximately £1bn and represented an increase of over 7% on the previous year.1 What is extremely concerning is the further amount of undetected insurance fraud that has an estimated value over £2bn, but this is just the tip of the general fraud iceberg that stands the UK at a total loss of over £38bn annually.