From fraud to money laundering

Insurers compensate the damage that individuals or companies suffer as a result of crime. But they also have to deal with crime in other ways, for example because they become victims of insurance fraud. The CBV helps them to combat the various forms of insurance crime. These include:

• Insurance fraud. Insurers face thousands of false claims or misleading insurance applications every year. This is done by occasional fraudsters, but also increasingly by organized gangs. Fraud is a problem for insurers themselves, but also for well-meaning customers. Because the higher the total claim burden for an insurer, the higher the premiums.
• Crime directed against insurers. Insurers can become victims of burglary, cybercrime, extortion or blackmail.  Staff may have to deal with aggression and violence.
• Money laundering and terrorist financing. Criminals can use their insurance to launder money, and compensation paid out can be used to finance terrorism.
• Corruption of personnel and business relations.

Vision on tackling insurance crime

In 2016, the CBV set out its vision on combating fraud with one of the principles that insurers had to start working streetwise with insurance fraud. They had to learn to think more or less like a fraud and be just as as perceptive and assertive. The five steps in the 2016 vision document have been properly implemented by insurers and the number of proven fraud cases has increased sharply. Following on from this, in 2020 the CBV published a new vision document 'Data and Decisiveness' in which the focus for the coming years will be on topics such as prevention, data sharing, modern technology and cooperation with chain and public partners.

The CBV helps insurers to combat insurance crime. It does so at the operational level and at the policy level.

Operational level

With its services, the CBV supports insurers and other parties in daily practice.

• Information hub. From the Safety Departments of insurers, the CBV receives data on fraud cases and other cases of insurance crime. Insurers, but also the police and the judiciary can call on this central database. If necessary, they can, for example, ask the CBV whether a suspicious person is known to another insurer or whether an applicant has sometimes been guilty of fraud with another insurer. A request for information often comes in the form of a CBV test, with which the CBV database is searched fully automatically for corresponding information. If the CBV does not have information, it can often refer to an organization that does have it. The CBV also receives (anonymous) tips about fraud cases and passes them on to the right insurer.
• Coordination of large-scale investigations. It happens that several insurers become victims of the same criminal group or of the same form of scams. The CBV then plays a supporting and coordinating role in collecting supporting documents and drawing up a joint declaration.
• Sounding board for procedures and measures. There are rightly strict rules, protocols and codes of conduct for the registration of fraudsters and fraud cases. In addition, procedures to deal with a fraudster are often complicated. Insurers can contact the CBV with questions or for advice on this.
• Data analysis and knowledge transfer. The CBV performs trend analyses and file comparisons. This signals new or striking forms of crime, but also provides insight into, for example, the profile of fraudsters. The CBV shares this information with the industry, including with so-called CBV warnings. This allows insurers to better manage their risks.

Policy development and support

The CBV is also working on combating insurance crime at policy level.

• Come up with solutions. Based on its expertise, the CBV provides solutions for information exchange, fraud investigation and fraud prevention, of course within the legal frameworks. For example, since 2016, insurers have been charging compensation of 532 euros to people who demonstrably submit a false claim on the basis of a lick-on-piece approach developed by the CBV.
• Industry-specific approach and regulations. The CBV develops a joint approach and regulations for the insurance industry. For example, the Code of Conduct for Personal Research contains rules that insurers must adhere to when they conduct a personal investigation. The Insurers and Crime Protocol contains standards for the way in which insurers tackle insurance crime.

Number of fraud investigations and cases of fraud detected

Savings in millions of euros by tackling insurance fraud

Top five insurance policies that are the most fraudulent

1. Car insurance
2. Contents and home insurance
3. Liability insurance
4. Package policy (combi insurance)
5. Travel insurance

The Centre for Combating Insurance Crime (CBV) in 2018

• 20,660 integrity and security checks (CBV tests)
• 105 hits based on the CBV keys
• 3,373 answered questions from insurers
• 395 requests for information from the police and the judiciary
• 43 fraud signals via anonymous tips

Factsheets

View facts and figures from previous years in the factsheets below.