If 2025 taught us anything about insurance fraud, it’s that it rarely turns up waving a red flag. Most of what we saw in the past year didn’t look dramatic or obviously dishonest. It looked almost right.
That, in many ways, was the defining feature of fraud in 2025. Not crude fabrications but claims that sat just inside tolerance levels. Losses that happened but grew. Evidence that existed but didn’t quite stack up. Narratives that sounded plausible until you slowed them down and tested them properly. Fraud hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t even necessarily increased in the way people often talk about it. What it has done is evolve, and it continues to do best where systems are stretched, the wrong decisions are made in haste, or the right decisions are made too late.
Volume stayed high, but the real issue was leakage
The headline figures around detected fraud stayed stubbornly high through 2025, but those numbers only tell part of the story. The bigger concern for us isn’t the claims that are declined or repudiated; it’s the ones that are settled because they never quite triggered enough fraud markers, or ticked enough boxes.
Economic pressure plays a big role in deception. Inflation, rising repair costs, and general financial strain created an environment where exaggeration became easier to justify, both to insurers and to claimants themselves. We saw plenty of genuine incidents that slowly expanded as the claim progressed, often with supporting documentation appearing after the narrative had already been set. The lesson here is uncomfortable but important: some of the most expensive fraud never gets labelled as fraud at all. It sits quietly inside paid claims.
Motor fraud didn’t disappear – it just got better
Motor claims, you won’t be surprised to learn, remained the busiest fraud space by far, but the tactics have changed noticeably. We saw fewer blatant staged collisions and over-the-top injury claims but more well-constructed motor losses. Damage that didn’t quite match the mechanics, hire periods that crept beyond what was reasonable, and injury narratives that were technically consistent but behaviourally questionable.
The ole crash-for-cash is still very much alive, but it’s been professionalised. Lower speeds, less obvious impact, more reliance on disputed liability and inflated post-incident costs. Much of the value now sits in the supply chain, not the collision itself.
For 2026, the risk is clear. Motor fraud is becoming harder to spot because it’s designed to look ordinary.
Exaggerated loss remains the bread-and-butter fraud
Across all classes of business, exaggerated loss was still the most common issue we dealt with. These are rarely cases where nothing happened. Something usually did. The problem is that the claim presented bears little resemblance to the actual damage or loss suffered. Replacement where repair would do. Invoices that don’t align with condition, age, or use. Contractors and third parties who seem unusually invested in maximising claim value.
Exaggeration thrives when claims are handled sequentially rather than critically. In 2026, the strongest defence will be simple but disciplined: does the evidence, taken as a whole, actually make sense?
Policy fraud and ghost broking continue to feed claims problems
2025 also reinforced how much fraud starts before a claim ever occurs.
Misrepresentation and non-disclosure at inception remain widespread, and ghost broking continues to surface, particularly among younger drivers or gig economy workers, recruited through social media. The fallout often doesn’t appear until a claim lands, at which point insurers are dealing with indemnity disputes, uninsured losses and complex recovery positions.
We’re likely to see more scrutiny in 2026 around policy formation and reliance, because poor controls at the front end always show up later in claims. Of course, the policy sales teams are keen to get the business through the front door. But this business looks rather costly when it walks out the back door with the company cheque book. Often, this is the first sign that the policy inception was not all that it was cracked up to be.
Technology helped everyone – including fraudsters
AI and digital tools improved fraud detection in 2025, but they also improved fraud presentation.
We increasingly saw images and documents that looked entirely credible until examined properly. Metadata didn’t align. Damage didn’t match impact. Timelines were too neat. The challenge going forward isn’t spotting obviously fake evidence; it’s questioning evidence that looks too good.
In 2026, verification will matter more than confidence.
Looking ahead to 2026
If current trends hold, our predictions are as follows:
- Fraud will continue to embed itself in the Credit Hire arena
- Ghost broking will grow much faster
- Bodily injury claims will continue to evolve away from traditional Whiplash
- Scottish-based claims will continue to expand in volume
- Evidence presented will need proper corroboration, not just acceptance
- Collaboration and data-sharing will matter more than individual wins.
Fraud doesn’t operate in isolation, and neither can investigations.
Final thought
2025 reminded us that fraud is rarely one big lie. It’s usually a series of small decisions, a little exaggeration here, a convenient omission there, evidence assembled to support a story rather than explain an event.
In 2026, the advantage will sit with those who slow claims down just enough to ask the right questions. Start with the mechanics, build the timeline and let the evidence speak, not the narrative.
That approach hasn’t changed. The need for it certainly hasn’t either.
David Booker M.A
