Fraudulent Insurance Claims are Becoming Easy to Discover

February 4 - South Africans who think that they can get away with making false claims to their insurance companies in the hope of making a quick buck should be warned.

The South African Insurance Association (SAIA) said that companies are becoming good at tracking down fraudulent claims, and there is much higher success rate that in the past in identifying false claims.

The festive period is a particularly active time for insurance fraudsters, especially the period before and after the Christmas holidays.

While the monetary pressures of the holidays may explain why people resort to reporting bogus crimes, nothing can justify making false claims.

"What we do experience is that in difficult economic times people do resort to all sorts of ways and means to make additional money," explained the spokesperson for the SAIA, Vivienne Pearson.

"In addition, over the Christmas period and usually after the Christmas period, we have in the past experienced an increase."

A recent case in point was a man from Parow in the Cape who claimed that his father's car and belongings were stolen during a carjacking.

The 'carjacking' was soon disproved and the claim turned down.

"I would like to add to that, it is not only a South African phenomenon," said Pearson.

"Insurance fraud happens everywhere in the world, but in general we do find an increase in claims over the Christmas period in South Africa."