"The £109 million of fraud we've uncovered this year shows both the scale of the threat and the importance of staying ahead of it."
- Scott Clayton - Zurich UK
Zurich UK has detected £109.3 million worth of fraudulent insurance claims in the last year.
Of this total, Zurich reports that its connected AI and advanced analytics helped to identify £17.9 million.
In total, the insurer exposed 4,359 fraudulent claims across its casualty, motor and property portfolios in the last 12 months.
This was the highest ever level of fraud detection by both value and volume exposed by Zurich, with the number of fraudulent claims identified rising 22% from 3,562 in 2022.
Throughout the last year, Zurich detected £61.6 million of casualty fraud across 2,380 claims, £28.1 million of motor fraud across 1,027 claims, and £19.6 million of property fraud across 951 claims.
Zurich says it has used connected analytics through Quantexa to identify organised motor scams, ghost broking, spurious credit-hire claims, fictitious liability claims, serial claimants and evolving crash-for-cash tactics.
This is the first time an insurance provider has been able to connect every insurance claim together across multiple sources of data for one individual claimant.
Cases uncovered by the technology include links between multiple suspicious claims and a common accident location, claimants using aliases to conceal previous activity, and organised fraud involving professional enablers such as rogue solicitors and accident-management companies.
The platform has also helped investigators identify people living in one part of the UK who were linked to suspected staged accidents hundreds of miles away.
"Insurance fraud in the UK is becoming more sophisticated, more organised and increasingly technology-enabled," Scott Clayton, head of claims fraud at Zurich UK and chair of IFB, said.
"Criminal networks are constantly adapting their tactics, whether that's staged accidents, ghost broking, fabricated claims or the use of AI-generated evidence.
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"The £109 million of fraud we've uncovered this year shows both the scale of the threat and the importance of staying ahead of it. Connected data is transforming the fight against fraud, helping us expose hidden relationships, identify organised networks and protect honest customers from footing the bill for criminal activity.
"The combination of advanced analytics, specialist investigators and human judgement is proving a powerful defence against a rapidly evolving threat.
"We’re the first insurer in the UK to use technology that brings together information from Companies House, Equifax, industry intelligence and the Insurance Fraud Register to give us a much richer picture across every claim.
"That helps us identify crucial connections and information that might otherwise be difficult to spot."
Vishal Marria, founder and CEO of Quantexa, added: "Fraud hides in the gaps between claims, which is why seeing the full context matters. With £1.34 billion of fraudulent claims uncovered across the industry in 2025, the cost lands on honest customers through higher premiums and slower service.
"A year in, it has been incredible to see Zurich use Quantexa’s context layer and decision intelligence platform to enhance its claims process and investigations capability. By putting every claim in context, networks come into view, organised threats are stopped earlier, and genuine claims are dealt with more quickly."
Ursula Jallow, executive director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), commented: "Insurance fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated and AI-driven, making it vital that we continue to invest in the systems, controls and partnerships needed to protect businesses and consumers.
"Through the IFB's Connected to Protect strategy, we are harnessing technology, data and cross-sector collaboration to strengthen fraud detection, disrupt criminal activity and raise awareness of emerging threats.
"We encourage anyone with information about insurance fraud to report it through our free, confidential CheatLine."
