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.
Christopher Ewing is the founder and Chief Strategy Officer of One Inc. A long time entrepreneur raised in Sacramento, CA, Christopher has a proven track-record building effective teams and partnerships to deliver innovative solutions to customers.
Christopher began his insurance industry career in 2003 as the President and CEO of Keenan Holdings. He also served as the CTO and General Counsel of Cost-U-Less Insurance Center, growing the company from 32 locations to more than 100. Chris was also the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Stonewood Insurance Services, Co-Founder and CTO of ClearSide General Insurance Services, and Co-Founder, General Counsel, and Executive VP of GreenPath Insurance Company.
Christopher received his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Riverside, and his Juris Doctor from University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
Mark Snyder is the principal consultant and claims subject matter expert at Hi Marley.
He is a proven leader and P&C insurance claims optimization expert with significant experience in quality management program design, insurtech and digital strategy operationalization, operational transformation, project management and training development and delivery.
Mark also has deep claims technical handling, management and auditing knowledge and skills across all major lines of business and select specialty lines.He previously held leadership positions with Ohio Casualty, Liberty Mutual, Athenium Analytics and Aon Inpoint.
Elad Tsur, chief AI officer at Applied Systems, is a serial entrepreneur who is passionate about bridging the gap between technology and business – specifically in insurance and other financial services.
Prior to joining Applied Systems in 2024, he was co-founder and CEO of Planck, where he helped create an AI-based data platform for commercial insurance that enables insurers to grow new and organic business while drastically reducing their loss and expense ratios.
Before launching Planck in 2015, Elad started BlueTail Corporation, which delivered the first comprehensive AI platform for customer relationship management. Acquired by Salesforce.com in 2012, today it is known as Salesforce Einstein.
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.
