The ITIJ team are reporting from ITIC UK in Brighton this week (29–30 April 2026), sharing the discussions that take place at the conference. Read all reports.
Smith began by showcasing a set of fraud statistics from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) for the year 2024, which were published last year.
She noted that UK insurers reported a 12% increase in fraudulent claims between 2023 and 2024, with the total cost of detected claims fraud being valued at around 1.16 billion.
However, Smith noted that the same ABI report found that when focusing on the travel insurance sector in particular, the total number of fraudulent claims detected increased by 97% between 2023 and 2024, to around 2,020 cases.
Additionally, the average size of each fraudulent claim was comparatively small for travel, at around 3,000 per claim, compared with around 13,000 across the entire insurance industry.
She warned that while the figure appeared impressive in isolation, the increase in detection was based on a relatively small base number, and it is likely that a lot of travel fraud continues to go unreported or undetected.
Smith also said that two key strategies used by fraudsters...
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