Traditional Insurance Risk Management processes have tended to focus on trying to spot those that may be regularly engaged in fraudulent activities, using a variety of largely static measures such as databases, claimant profiling, credit reference checks, etc. to try and do so. The results are patchy to say the least.

Detecting opportunistic, one-off and occasional fraudsters is even more difficult. These do not ‘neatly' fit into the risk pigeon holes commonly used to try and identify those in the above category. There is no commonality of socio-economic grouping, sex, age, race or region. Their propensity to commit fraud is as irregular as their personal circumstances and not related to income. Further, opportunists are far more prevalent and face very little to deter them.

Research shows that people from higher socio-economic groups, in general the most significant purchasers of financial services products, are as likely to commit insurance fraud as anyone else in the population (ABI General Insurance Monthly , Nov 2004).