Insurance fraud can take many different forms, but in its most basic form, insurance fraud involves fraudulent claims by or against an insured person in order to elicit money from them. Some examples include:

• Motor insurance fraud and ‘crash for cash’

This is a form of scam wherein a road traffic collision is deliberately caused or fabricated to claim against the insurance. There are three main forms of crash for cash incidents – staged, induced, or ghost claims.

– A staged incident could be a crash orchestrated between two people who are both involved in the scam or mimicking damage from a legitimate crash.

– An induced incident is one of the more well-known forms of crash for cash – targeting an innocent driver and creating a situation where they are the ‘at fault’ driver. This is often achieved by braking suddenly in front of another car to cause the driver to crash into the back of the fraudster or flashing their lights to encourage a driver to pull out and then crashing into them.

– A ghost claim is entirely fabricated and sent through to the insurance provider for financial gain.

• Home insurance fraud

This can involve anything from staging a burglary, exaggerating claims when faced with a legitimate loss, making false claims or damaging your own property to claim the insurance money from it.

• Ghost brokers

These are people who either buy and doctor legitimate insurance policies or create entirely false ones and then offer them to the unsuspecting public as a great deal. Those who buy their insurance from a ghost broker are essentially not insured and may face penalties.

• Supplier fraud

This is where any kind of supplier (such as builders, motor repairers or other tradespeople), who an insurer has engaged to repair insured property, charges for work they have not completed or inflates the cost of their work.

An insurance fraud lawyer can help you defend your best interests if the claim goes to court.