Aviva said it identified fraudulent claims worth a total of £127m in 2024 and declined 14% more claims due to fraud than in the previous year. The carrier said it also picked up fraud in more than 98,000 insurance application, which was almost double what it detected the previous year. Within these application frauds, Aviva said there had been an 18% increase in ghost-brokered policies.

Pete Ward, head of claims counter fraud at Aviva, said: “The overwhelming majority of our customers are honest, and we are committed to settling their claims quickly. But where we detect insurance fraud, we have a responsibility to protect our customers from its harmful effects and additional costs.

“So it is encouraging to see a continued improvement in our fraud detection figures. Our ongoing investment in advanced analytics, machine learning models and continuous training for our people has significantly improved our fraud detection rates. We expect this trend to continue against a backdrop of ongoing economic hardship, which we know is a contributing factor to committing insurance fraud.”