Insurance exists to protect whoever buys it, their belongings or those around them from an unexpected event: a medical or funeral expense, repair or replacement of an object that was damaged or stolen, pay a salary if you are unable to work for a while or for good, and many other things.
Part of the insurance business depends on the good faith of someone who offers a legal service and someone who buys it to use it. Fraud harms that chain, but in the last half of 2021, 9,916 cases occurred. The regions of the country where they are most recorded are Bogotá, Antioquia, Valle and Atlántico.
According to the Federation of Colombian Insurers (Fasecolda), the union of insurance companies, the type of insurance with which the most fraud was attempted was the mandatory traffic accident (SOAT), with 5,622 cases. A total of 533 cases of vehicle insurance fraud were also identified, covering the disappearance or theft of their parts.
In the cases of SOAT policies, 37% of frauds were cases of borrowed accreditation, that is, someone had an accident with a vehicle that was not insured and tried to cover the costs with the insurance of another car, truck or motorcycle. This type of fraud is committed by insurance users themselves, but it is not the only one.
On other occasions, the insurer was charged for a medical procedure that the victim never received or even needed; especially fracture management materials. These frauds accounted for 23% of the total and are committed by service providers, such as ambulance companies and IPS. Frauds committed by these entities accounted for a total of 71 per cent of embezzlements with SOATs, while insured persons committed 15 per cent.
According to Fasecolda, it also happens that some unscrupulous people offer false policies with unusual discounts, above 30% of the conventional value. The victim of the scam goes out to drive with the confidence that he is protected, but could be disappointed at the worst moment.
In addition to money, the unsuspecting also hand over sensitive personal data and may be victims of other financial crimes or impersonations. For this reason, the insurance union recommends being vigilant.
Some recommendations for not falling into scams include: distrusting high policy discounts, not sending documents or personal data through social networks or WhatsApp, not consigning to natural person accounts and verifying the identity of the seller with the insurance company. You can do this from the Single Insurance Intermediary Consultation System (SUCIS).
The scales tilt the other way in the case of car insurance. In these cases, insured persons committed 78 per cent of the fraud against insurance companies.
Forty-nine per cent of the cases of fraud were opportunistic claims. For example, a user discovers that a mirror was stolen and expects the insurance company to change both, as well as changing a broken lantern and fixing a scratch on the vehicle door. Some people also lie to be recovered for damage or theft that never happened.
On the other hand, nearly 7.1 million vehicles do not have any SOAT. The guild highlighted that of the 16 million vehicles in the country, 10.1 million are motorcycles. As of September 2021, only 8.9 million cars were covered by insurance.
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