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Tue, 06 Oct 2026

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 Lego fraudster among last year's most high-profile insurance scammers

The person was sentenced to 28 months in prison after an investigation found the claims were made up, the insurance trade body, the ABI said.

* A scammer was sentenced to 28 months in prison for making false home insurance claims about stolen Lego.
* The average value of a fraudulent claim reached £14,300 last year, with £1.34bn worth of claims detected, a 14% increase on the previous year.
* Motor insurance remains the area where insurers identify the most fraudulent cases, accounting for 55% of all scam claims.
* Exaggerated loss is the most common type of insurance fraud, with 26,900 cases identified last year.
* The ABI said that while the rate of detected insurance fraud fell slightly last year, fraudsters are targeting bigger payouts and emerging technologies like AI will continue to be exploited.
* A man was jailed for 20 months for manipulating women into participating in staged car crashes, while another was sentenced to four and a half years for submitting over £300,000 worth of fraudulent travel medical emergency claims.