The number of insurance fraud cases in the Czech Republic significantly increased last year, with a surge in incidents where individuals report injuries that never happened. In some situations, people have been found to manipulate personal details on legitimate health documents doctors provide. This worrying trend came to light in a recent report by Petr Kafka, the head of the investigation unit at Generali Czech Insurance.
Insurance fraud has become a hot topic, with most insurance companies reporting a year-on-year increase in such cases, often by tens of percent. For instance, fraud cases worth 727 million crowns were recorded last year, a quarter more than the previous year. While some associate this rise with the challenging economic situation firms and households faced the prior year, others see it as a matter of moral integrity.
The typical insurance fraudster is often a man, a demographic that dominates motor vehicle-related damage claims. This prevalence is partly due to the ease with which damages can be exaggerated or fabricated in motor insurance events and partly a historical trend that dates back to the 1990s.
Interestingly, most fraud cases involve the inflation of actual damages rather than the concoction of entirely fabricated incidents. In many instances, an individual experiences genuine damage and merely takes advantage of the situation to overstate the value of the damage. However, there are also cases where fraudsters create an entire damage event that never occurred.
Looking forward, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into counter-fraud efforts. Insurance companies are leveraging the power of AI to detect insurance fraud, employing teams of data analysts who use AI tools to identify suspicious cases. Despite the technological advancements, human