Insurers under-reporting fraud to police: StatsCan

Insurance companies beset by fraudulent claims are under-reporting the fraud to police, according to a Statistics Canada report, Survey of Fraud Against Businesses.

The report is based on a survey covering about 7,500 business establishments and head offices from the retail, banking, health and property insurance sectors.

The study found just under half (about 45 per cent) of health and property insurance establishments reported experiencing fraud in 2008.

More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of all fraud incidents related to these businesses involved false or inflated claims.

Of the individual health and property insurance establishments experiencing fraud, about seven in 10 reported financial losses as a consequence.

And yet, despite the scope and impact of the reported fraud, the study found 46 per cent of all health and property insurance establishments in the survey never or rarely contacted police in cases of fraud.

“Overall, the most common reasons for not contacting police were that the incident was too minor (34 per cent) or that it was handled in some other way (33 per cent),” the StatsCan study says.

About 36 per cent said that they reported the fraud to police on occasion.

About 18per cent of all individual health and property insurance establishments said they always or often reported fraud to police.

The full report can be found at: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dailyquotidien/091210/dq091210ceng.htm