OREANDA-NEWS. September 12, 2012. Ingosstrakh Insurance Company managed to suppress 640 attempts of illicit insurance payments over the first half of 2012. The amount of prevented illicit payments makes up approximately 295.8 million rubles, which is 21% more than in the first half of 2011. 20 statements regarding the facts of illegal actions against the company have been sent to law enforcement authorities. 17 criminal cases have been launched on their basis.

Most of all the attempts to illegally obtain insurance indemnity fall on car insurance, which can be explained by a large number of participants in the sector, as well as a possibility to simply simulate an insured accident. Moreover, the attempts to obtain insurance indemnity from the insurance company have been made not only by professional criminals, but also by ordinary people who want to deceive their insurer in order to exaggerate the extent of damage, get a compensation for non-existent damage, etc.

One of the main problems is large number of car thefts. During the first half of 2012 41,903 vehicles were stolen in Russia. Ingosstrakh Insurance Company has registered 679 claims for the theft risk during this time. Thanks to the effective work of the analysis and information security department of the company, 42 stolen vehicles have been discovered during the first half of the year together with the police.

Some of fraud actions against Ingosstrakh Insurance Company were performed by insurance intermediaries who issue false policies, award insurance premiums, etc. During the 1st half of 2012 Ingosstrakh Insurance Company submitted 5 statements to law enforcement authorities in respect of insurance intermediaries, who award premiums and issue policies and registered forms.

According to Alexander Gulyaev, the director of the analysis and information security department of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company, there is no official statistics on insurance fraud in the country. "In our practice, we focus on the average number of 1000 established events of unfair interaction on the part of counterparties per year, and it concerns only Ingosstrakh Insurance Company. Taking into account our share in the insurance market, it is easy to calculate the total array in the country and compare it to the official statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There is an opportunity to put down a corresponding mark in the records of law enforcement authorities, but it is not always done due to some technical reasons. In addition, we cannot ignore the high level of latency of this type of crime, and the fact that most people do not think that a fraud in respect to an insurance company is a crime. We should explain that this is a criminal act that is covered by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation”, - Alexander Gulyaev said.