“How are you going to unite to fight insurance fraud until you agree on a definition of what it means?” This was the challenge put forth at the first-ever Global Insurance Fraud Summit in Barcelona in 2019. The speaker was John Francini representing the United States’ National Association of Insurance Commissioners as the chair of their Anti-Fraud Task Force.

Answering the call, the Global Insurance Fraud Summit took up the challenge of developing a first-ever global definition of insurance fraud. The task took nearly 3 years and involved extensive input from anti-fraud leaders and organizations across the globe.

The mission of the Global Insurance Fraud Summit is to provide a forum for recognized anti-fraud leaders from across the world to meet, to appropriately share information, data and methods to combat global insurance fraud and to facilitate improved and stronger communications among world anti-fraud leaders.

At the 2023 Global Insurance Fraud Summit in Edinburgh, Scotland attendees unanimously adopted a definition of insurance fraud intended to help unite the world in protecting both consumers and insurance carriers from fraud. While fighting insurance fraud is complex and multi-faceted, this straightforward one-sentence definition is intended to be a guide and to assist fraud-fighting efforts around the world.

Insurance Fraud: “The intentional providing of false or misleading information, or withholding material information, as part of an insurance transaction.”