The accountancy network known as BDO have released their half year report on fraud which has made for some very interesting reading. The report has been running for seven years and for the first time has broken the £1billion mark for a 6 month period. The total amount of recorded fraud for the first 6 months of 2010 is almost the same as the whole of 2008 which shows how worryingly fraud is become more common.
Obviously BDO are recording all types of fraud but their figures show that the insurance sector leads the way with 49% of recorded fraud making it the most targeted by the fraudsters. Whilst the distribution is not surprising, and probably hasn’t changed a great deal over the years, the amounts we are talking about are increasing at an alarming rate.
Regulators are taking more and more steps to combat fraudulent activities but these figures show that they may not be working. It is not coincidence that this dramatic change is happening at the same time as the recession. BDO has predicted these figures will continue to rise in the second half of 2010 so we could end up seeing further records being broken that we perhaps don’t want to see.