Fraud is continuing to increase this year, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.
The report found that 79 percent of anti-fraud professionals have seen an increase in the overall level of fraud as of November, compared to 77 percent in August and 68 percent in May. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents said in November the increase has been significant, compared to 34 percent in August and 25 percent in May.
Scott Beeman joined Aflac as senior vice president; president of Premier Life, Absence and Disability Solutions (PLADS) in 2020, responsible for leading all aspects of Aflac’s PLADS business. With more than 20 years of leadership experience in the insurance and health care industry, Scott is a visionary with a proven track record of channeling his passion and creativity not only into driving revenue and profitable growth, but also into instituting scalable and sustainable infrastructures and leading the pace and progress of restructurings, product development, and organizational change management programs to realize growth and create new value.
Prior to joining Aflac, Scott was president and chief operating officer of Benefit Harbor Insurance Services, LLC. He also previously served as head of Business Strategy, Operations and IT for the Life, Disability and Absence Management program at Zurich, responsible for the creation of the overall strategic value proposition and execution of its life insurance and disability operations with emphasis on the growth of the group life insurance business. Prior to joining Zurich, Scott held numerous leadership positions with Aetna, including head of Life and Long Term Care Businesses and chief executive officer of Aetna Workforce Availability, where he successfully demonstrated the ability to launch and exponentially grow both new and well established businesses. Prior to joining Aetna, Scott held positions of increasing responsibility in various sectors of the health care industry. He previously co-founded his own company, specializing in Internet-based information systems for the high-tech medical equipment sector, which he successfully negotiated for sale in 2001.
Within his local community, Scott serves on the board of The Cove Center for Grieving Children. He holds a Bachelor of Science in health policy and management from Providence College in Rhode Island and earned a certificate of professional development in executive leadership from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Marla Willner is the head of commercial credit management and strategic Initiatives for TD Bank. She is also executive sponsor of the bank's Women in Leadership Employee Group.
Kerry L. Myers is a clinical professor of forensic accounting and law at the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy at the University of South Florida. He is also assigned to the Florida Center for Cybersecurity at the University of South Florida. He earned his Juris Doctorate, with Distinction, from the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Accounting, Summa Cum Laude, from Central Missouri University. He is a licensed attorney in Missouri where he practiced law and was a federal prosecutor for many years. He recently retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation where he served as the supervisory special agent of the Technical Operations Squad.
Cyber fraud, payment fraud (such as schemes with debit and credit cards) and identity theft are the three top fraud schemes seeing increases, according to anti-fraud professionals.
The largest increase in observed fraud was in financial statement fraud, with 7 percent more anti-fraud professionals reported seeing financial statement fraud in November, compared to August. That could be because as companies continue to see their profits drop, they feel more pressure to cook the books.
The survey also found 77 percent of anti-fraud professionals report that investigating and preventing fraud is more challenging now, while 71 percent said detecting fraud is more challenging as a result of the pandemic.
ACFE members anticipate the fraud trend will continue, even as vaccines have begun rolling out this week in the U.S. Ninety percent of the survey respondents expect a further increase in the level of fraud over the next 12 months, with 44 percent predicting the change is likely to be significant.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the organizations polled expect to increase their investments in anti-fraud technology, and 38 percent intend to raise the use of fraud-related consultants or other external resources. Budgets for anti-fraud training and professional development are experiencing a similar increase (according to 37 percent of the organizations polled), but nearly one-quarter (24 percent) anticipate a decrease in this area. The budget component most likely to see decreases is travel for anti-fraud staff, which shouldn’t be surprising given the plunging levels of air travel in general over this past year, with 38 percent of the survey respondents expecting a reduction in funds for travel in the year ahead.
