By Agiza Hlongwane
Faking it - it's big business these days.
Whether a burnt body, a nicked car, a stolen iPod, a king's ransom in jeweller or designer sunglasses, all are being eyed by the crafty.
The life insurance industry has prevented some 21 000 fraudulent insurance claims over the past five years, according to the Cape Town-based Life Offices Association (LOA), an umbrella body for life assurance companies.
Had these claims not been identified and prevented, losses would have amounted to R1,3-billion, according to chief executive Gerhard Joubert.
The short-term insurance industry, on the other hand, received more than R22-billion in claims in 2006 and industry insiders fear a significant portion constituted fake claims.
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So worried is the security industry about the rampant fraud that next week, it will launch the SA Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB).
The bureau, it is hoped, will breathe new life into the fight against this type of crime once it starts operating on November 1.
Recently, KwaZulu-Natal has seen increasingly inventive insurance fraud scams aimed at defrauding insurance companies out of millions of rands.
These include:
* The sensational "resurrection" of a prominent Durban businessman who had allegedly led his relatives to believe he'd been burnt beyond recognition in his bakkie.
* A scam uncovered by police earlier this year in which the bodies of 21 "vulnerable" people, most of them hobos and prostitutes, were used to claim from life insurance.
Undetected
The SAICB believes the current approach to insurance fraud is fragmented and ineffective.
"Insurance fraud is a difficult thing," said Vivienne Pearson, image and reputation manager at the SA Insurance Association (SAIA), which has facilitated the formation of the SAICB.
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