What's insurance fraud?
Insurance fraud is when someone lies about their policy or claim, or otherwise withholds important information.
It can also be when criminals take advantage of other customers by trying to sell them fake policies, for example.
It's mostly to trick the company or customers out of money, but it can look like a few different things. We've outlined some of the most common insurance scams below.
Common insurance scams
Some insurance scams involve stealing people's identities to take out a policy and make fake claims.
In some cases, these people might create a fake website that resembles the Admiral website, so you mistakenly buy a policy through them instead. This is known as 'ghost broking'.
In a lot of cases, insurance scams are designed to take money from us as a company. For instance, faking burglaries to make bogus home insurance claims, or exaggerating the details of a claim to get more money.
Either way, both the customers and company lose out as insurance fraud drives up the price of everyone's premiums.
What's ghost broking?
Ghost broking is when an individual or group pretend to be 'middlemen' for well-known insurers and try to offer you a fake insurance policy at a cheap price.
Either they'll forge the insurance documents, falsify your details to bring the price down or take out a genuine policy for you to then cancel it.
Usually, people will only realise they've fallen victim to a scam when they try to claim on their insurance and aren't able to. This can leave people in a desperate situation.
What's smishing, vishing and phishing?
When someone tries to scam you by email, it's called phishing. When someone tries to scam you over a phone call this is known as vishing, and scam SMS messages are known as smishing.
Phishing is one of the most popular online scam methods in the world.
A typical phishing scam involves impersonating a trusted person or company to trick a victim into giving up sensitive information.
A phishing scammer may be looking for something as simple as a social media password but could also be looking to gather lots of personal information for a more serious crime like identity theft.
How to spot scams and fraud
Spotting scams and fraud can be difficult. They get more and more sophisticated all the time, so even the savviest of us could fall prey to a convincing scam.
How can I spot a phishing email?
- Grammatical or spelling mistakes in the email
- A request you weren't expecting
- Requests for personal information
- Links they want you to click
- Emotional language or a sense of urgency
How can I spot a fake website?
- URLs that don't start with 'https://' or have a padlock symbol by them - this means they aren't secure
- URLs that don't quite look right - e.g. 'admirale.com' rather than 'admiral.com'
- Spelling or grammatical errors on the page
- Very little company information on 'contact us' or 'about us' pages
- No privacy policy or terms and conditions
How can I spot a fishing call?
- It's a call that's unsolicited or you weren't expecting
- They use urgency or fear tactics - e.g. 'if you don't give me your details now, your bank account will be shut down'
- They request personal information - a lot of companies like banks will never ask for personal information over the phone
- A lot of background noise or poor call quality
How can I spot a smishing text?
- Check the phone number and if you're unsure, do a quick Google search to see if it's the number you think it is
- The text has a sense of urgency or is trying to get you to do something immediately
- The tone of the text doesn't seem like it fits the sender, or has spelling mistakes
Reporting a scam
If you think you've fallen victim to a scam that involves us, it's important you let us know.
Contact us
There are different ways you can contact us to find out more about the support available:
If you have hearing or speech difficulties, you can use the national text relay service, Relay UK, to act on your behalf. Everything is completely confidential, including the details you share for identification and verification questions.
More on privacy and security
Head to our Help and support hub to find more resources or check out the links below.
Support with privacy and security
Our privacy policy means that it's our responsibility to keep your details safe. Find out how you can protect your personal details too.
Support with privacy and securityInvestment and cryptocurrency scams
There are many different types of cryptocurrency and investment scams. They can be very convincing, and anyone can be caught out.
Avoid scamsFinancial Conduct Authority's ScamSmart resource
Check an investment or pension opportunity you've been offered and avoid scams.
Know the risksKeep your home safe while you're abroad
We all love our social media, but if you're not careful a seemingly innocent holiday snap could spell disaster for your home security.
Social media safety