What is Fraud Week?
International Fraud Awareness Week is a global campaign led by US-based Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and highlights the importance of fraud detection and prevention. Each November, organisations around the world pledge to increase fraud awareness in their workplaces and communities. Hashtags associated with this are: #FraudWeek and #FraudAwarenessWeek.

Why is it important to participate?
With insurance fraud estimated to cost the UK economy over £2 billion each year, we are all paying the price. By prompting conversations about how important fraud awareness is you could help a colleague, a family member or a parent on the school run avoid falling foul of a scam. 

For example, did you know only one in ten people surveyed knew what Ghost Broking was?* Or you could help them avoid non-existent loopholes, such as fronting.

Fraud impacts all of us. And through awareness and reporting we can fight fraud together.

An IFB Fraud Week
For the team at the IFB, Fraud Week fell over two weeks, as we had too many activities to fit into one!

Kicking off a week early, members of our Operation and Investigation teams attended two events at members’ regional offices as part of a roadshow aimed to help them raise awareness of insurance scams. We also held an online masterclass for IFiHUB users to gain additional insight and help streamline their use of the tool.

Next was receiving the Outstanding Private/Third Sector Initiative award at the Tackling Economic Crime Awards (TECAs). This was perfect timing as it helped us kick of the official Fraud Awareness week with a bang, highlighting all of the accomplishments we’ve had in raising awareness of insurance scams and the pitfalls of falling for the lure of opportunistic insurance fraud (hint: it’s not worth the risk).

Then Fraud Week started. In addition to posting daily on five different social media platforms to increase public awareness of insurance scams, we also did a lot for our members. To start we had a soft launch of our latest Fraud Investigation Strategy Training*, which aims to provide an introduction into insurance fraud, an overview of the different stakeholders helping to disrupt fraud, and insights into how to develop a fraud investigation strategy. Perfect for anyone new to a counter-fraud role and can be used to promote fraud awareness in non-fraud roles.

Next, we had ‘Wild Wednesday’, where we held a total of three events and one training session on the same day! First, we held a Workshop on Data Theft and Fraudulent Documentation providing invaluable insights into current trends and relevant intelligence, evidence, strategy and disruption opportunities, empowering attendees with tools and knowledge to fight fraud. Alongside this we ran a member User Training aimed to help attendees utilise our counter-fraud solutions, understand the quality of intelligence leads, increase understanding of how industry collaboration works, and how to put this all into practice to ensure optimal efficiency. Then we met with the IFB Board to celebrate 2024 achievements (award included) and discuss plans for 2025. And after that, we still had the energy to run an internal Fraud Fair for our MIB colleagues aimed at raising awareness and encourage them to share the message far and wide.

The following day we held an in-person Fraud Forum, Fraud to the Future, focused on tackling the predicted threats in 2030-35 and sharing strategies for effective prevention of predicted. We also managed to sneak in a slot speaking at a Gibraltar based forum sharing insights around cross-border fraud.

Was it a success?
Only time will tell, but we had one staff member feedback that following our internal staff event and fraud messaging, they helped an elderly neighbour renew his car insurance and avoid falling for a tempting too-good-too-be-true text he had received and managed to secure his insurance with a legitimate insurer. We’re going to count it as a win!

*YouGov survey commissioned by the IFB, May 2024.
*If you’d like to know more about the Fraud Investigation Strategy Training or would like to sign up, please contact John Davies.