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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you think you've fallen victim to a scam that involves us, it's important you let us know.
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.
Head to our Help and support hub to find more resources or check out the links below.
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 securityThere are many different types of cryptocurrency and investment scams. They can be very convincing, and anyone can be caught out.
Avoid scamsCheck an investment or pension opportunity you've been offered and avoid scams.
Know the risksWe 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