Insurance fraud lead to higher premiums

Insurance companies suffer hundreds of millions of euros in damages through insurance fraud every year. And those damages are covered by the consumer - an average Dutch household pays about 100 euros a year more to cover damages caused by fraudsters, according to a report by the Center for Combating Insurance Fraud of the Association of Insurers, the Telegraaf reports. In the report, titled Fraudsters caught in facts and figures, insurers try to get a clear profile of potential fraudsters. "We do this because we better want to protect ourselves against (potential) fraudsters making unnecessary costs for insurers and their customers. That can only be done if you know the characteristics of a fraudster and where he mainly tries to strike", Rudi Buis of the association said to the newspaper. For this report the Center analysed millions of claim registrations combined with information of more than 17,500 people on insurers' national alert system. Insurance fraudsters are registered on this system and blacklisted for up to 8 years. The researchers found that the average insurance fraudster is a man in his early thirties that lives in Almere or Lelystad and prefers to try his fraud-luck on motor insurance. Fire, travel and third-party liability policies are also frequent targets. Men are 70 percent more likely to commit insurance fraud than women. Women tend to start earlier and get caught by the time they reach 30. In absolute numbers, most insurance fraudsters live in the provinces of Zuid-Holland, Noord-Brabant and Noord Holland. But adjusted to population size, Flevoland has the most fraudsters with 15.1 per 10 thousand residents. Zuid-Holland comes in second place with 13.7, followed by Limburg with 12.5