Fraudulent insurance claims reach record high in 2024
Published: 09 Mar. 2025, 16:10
The Financial Supervisory Service logo
The amount of insurance payments collected through insurance fraud climbed to an all-time high last year, prompting authorities to step up efforts to curb such practices, the financial regulator said Sunday.
Insurance scammers took a record 1.15 trillion won ($794.6 million) through wrongful filings in 2024, up 3 percent from a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The number of suspects involved in such cases, however, declined 0.5 percent on year to 108,997.
Fraud involving counterfeit or fabricated medical records to make overstated claims accounted for the largest at 58.2 percent of all false claims, followed by false accidents at 20.2 percent and intentional accidents at 14.7 percent.
By category, fraud involving car insurance and long-term insurance accounted for 49.6 percent and 42.2 percent of the total, respectively.
Most suspects in their 20s and 30s were involved in cases related to car insurance, such as intentional collisions and drunk or unlicensed driving, whereas those in their 50s or older were mostly involved in fraud related to hospitals, such as false hospitalization.
The financial regulator said it would step up efforts to prevent seniors and younger generations from being involved in insurance fraud and conduct an investigation to root out such crimes.
Yonhap
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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