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Identity (ID) theft is a type of fraud that occurs when a bad actor uses someone’s personal details, such as their legal name, date of birth, address or credit card information, to commit an illegal activity. When it comes to insurance crime, Équité Association sees identity theft used to perform deeply complex insurance scams, and may be connected back to criminal organizations. This type of insurance crime has serious and devastating consequences for the victims, as well as negative impacts on public safety.
ID theft starts when a fraudster purposefully gains access to the victim’s personal information. They often steal physical documents with this information on them or trick victims into divulging personal information through various schemes, such as phone scams or deceptive ads. Fraudsters will create a synthetic ID by combining true information from multiple victims into a new identity for the purpose of committing insurance crime.
Once a fraudster has personal information from victims, they may use it in many different ways. Below are examples that Équité investigators and analysts have identified as ID theft in insurance crime:
ID theft is an example of how insurance fraud hides in plain sight, and why Équité’s leading-edge platform, ÉQ Insights will be essential for identifying fraudulent patterns across the industry. ÉQ Insights brings together industry-wide information in one place for effective insurance crime detection. With the power of this consortium model, each insurer no longer has to combat insurance crime alone. This technology will shift the entire property and casualty insurance industry from a reactive approach to a ‘predict and prevent’ model and, ultimately, make a meaningful reduction of these crimes across Canada.
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