jamislovin

As part of the government’s reforms to policing and the fight against serious and organized crime, I have decided to close the National Fraud Authority and realign its responsibilities to reflect the creation of the National Crime Agency.

The National Crime Agency, with its Economic Crime Command, will bring a single national focus to cutting economic crime and will lead and coordinate the national fight against fraud, working with law enforcement agencies, regulators, government and the public, private and voluntary sectors. While the National Fraud Authority has been successful in raising awareness of fraud and improving co-ordination, the focus should now be on cutting economic crime. The National Fraud Authority will close by 31 March 2014 and its functions will be transferred as follows:

• strategic development and threat analysis will be led by the National Crime Agency
• Action Fraud, the national fraud and financially-motivated internet crime reporting centre, will become the responsibility of the City of London Police, to create a stronger end-to-end fraud reporting and analysis system
• work to raise awareness of fraud, including delivery of the national e-confidence campaign, will transfer to the Home Office
• development of the Counter-fraud Checking Service will be led by the Cabinet Office

The closure of the National Fraud Authority will strengthen the government’s fight against economic crime by concentrating effort into law enforcement bodies and improving the fraud reporting and analysis service. The changes will further support the National Crime Agency’s role in leading the fight against serious and organized crime.

The Insurance Fraud Bureau, which investigates organized fraud, says it is examining more cases involving ghost brokers than they ever have before Con men are targeting motorists looking for cheap car insurance online and selling them bogus policies.

The fraudsters pose as genuine insurance brokers, known as ghost brokers.

The scam raked in £500,000 for crooks last year.

The Insurance Fraud Bureau, which investigates organized fraud, says it is examining more cases than ever before.

Ben Fletcher, director at the bureau, said: “Over the last 18 months we have seen a marked increase in ghost broking scams.

“The scale of these scams is breathtaking and each one can potentially leave motorists out of pocket and inadvertently driving without insurance.

“We advise all motorists to be extra vigilant when buying insurance and particularly wary of any deal that seems too good to be true.”

Driving without valid insurance is illegal and could leave you with a criminal record and personally liable for the costs of any accident.

Insurance Fraud Investigators Group is a Members’ Organization dedicated to the detection and prevention of Insurance Fraud. It is a non-profit making organization created to tackle the growing problem of Insurance Fraud in the UK and disrupt insurance fraudsters.

Members include Insurers, Lawyers, Loss Adjusters, and Investigation Agencies all of whom are committed to preventing Insurance Fraud.

On 1st October 2008 IFIG became one of the first organisations in the UK to be acknowledged by the Government as a 'Specified Anti-Fraud Organisation' under the Serious Crime Act 2007.

Only six anti-fraud organisations have been awarded this status which allows public bodies to share intelligence with IFIG to prevent or detect fraud in general and insurance fraud in particular. IFIG Chairman Rob Smith-Wright states :

"We know fraudsters involve themselves in many aspects of criminality and we are very keen to disrupt them by working closely with organisations across the public and private sectors.

IFIG now has over 320 company members covering the vast majority of the insurance industry and insurance fraud investigators. The SAFO status awarded to IFIG by the Home Office in 2008 has enabled IFIG to build upon our relationships with the public sector and law enforcement agencies, and has supported our key aim of working together to detect, disrupt and prevent insurance fraud."

This website is designed to encourage anyone to report insurance fraud that has occurred or may occur within the UK. You can also find out more information about Insurance Fraud and IFIG as a counter fraud organisation.