Insurer Allianz UK uncovered 33,027 instances of insurance fraud worth a total of £157.24m in 2024 – equivalent to 90 frauds worth £430,000 a day, and up 10% on the £142.38m figure for 2023.

Detection of application fraud continued to grow, with trends including increasing levels of policy abuse, misrepresentation and ID theft, including a high number of ghost brokers, resulting in a year-on-year increase in prevented fraud of 9%. The figures also revealed an increase in frauds involving moped and motorcycle riders, often connected to the delivery industry, trying to circumvent having the proper level of cover in place.

Across motor and casualty, trends included a continued increase in the frequency of non-tariff injuries (injuries excluding soft-tissue or whiplash claims) being claimed. There was also an increase in moped riders and couriers inducing and fabricating incidents to make claims often called ‘cash-for-crash’ scams.

Property insurance fraud has continued to see rises in fake and exaggerated theft claims, which in commercial lines was up by as much as 29% year on year. In personal lines, the introduction of voice analytics has uncovered opportunistic fraud, which may previously have gone unnoticed.

Ben Fletcher, director of fraud at Allianz UK, said: “The vast majority of claims are genuine and our focus as a business is to ensure we settle those promptly, but the sad reality is that some people will go to enormous lengths to make fraudulent claims.

“The increase in the amount of fraud can be attributed to several factors. The ongoing cost of living challenge and financial struggles people are facing is driving some people to commit insurance fraud. We are resolute in our determination to identify and defend against any type of fraud and use a variety of methods to detect it. We share information with the police and other insurers to prevent fraud happening and will not hesitate to prosecute cases.”