Insurance Fraud Surges, Last Year's Detected Amount 943.4 Billion Won "Record High"

[Asia Economy Reporter Changhwan Lee] Last year, the amount of insurance fraud detected in South Korea reached an all-time high.

On the 12th, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced that the amount of insurance fraud detected last year was 943.4 billion KRW, a 5% increase compared to the previous year. The number of people caught was 98,826, a 1.2% decrease from the previous year.

The FSS explained that the increase in the detected amount and the decrease in the number of people caught were due to focusing investigative capabilities on organized high-value insurance fraud. The amount detected per person also increased by 6.3% from the previous year to 9.7 million KRW.

By type of insurance fraud, manipulation of accident details accounted for 60.6%. This was followed by intentional accidents at 16.7% and false accidents at 15.0%.

Manipulation of accident details includes exaggerated claims through falsification of medical certificates (19.5%), manipulation of automobile accident details (16.5%), drunk and unlicensed driving (11.3%), and violation of disclosure obligations (11.1%).

By age group, those in their 50s had the highest detection rate (23%, 22,488 people), but their share of the total detected individuals decreased from 25.9% in 2019 to 23% in 2021.

On the other hand, insurance fraud among people in their 20s has shown an average annual increase of 15.7% over the past three years. Among them, 83.1% focused on automobile insurance fraud.

By insurance type, the amount detected in non-life insurance increased by 66.4 billion KRW (8.1%) from the previous year to 887.9 billion KRW, accounting for 94.1% of the total.

The amount detected in life insurance decreased by 28.0% (21.6 billion KRW) from the previous year to 55.5 billion KRW (5.9%) due to a reduction in false (excessive) hospitalizations caused by COVID-19.

The FSS emphasized that it plans to strengthen investigations and detections of organized insurance fraud to establish a sound insurance market order and prevent public and private insurance financial leakage and damage to the public caused by insurance fraud.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.