Devotees of true crime documentaries and podcasts will be all too familiar with the trope of spouses taking out life insurance on their partners before murdering them for the payout. While its not possible to do that in South Africa without the partys consent, that doesnt mean we don't have our own rogues gallery of insurance fraudsters.
DStv and Showmax subscribers, for example, may be familiar with Rosemarys Family. The documentary tells the story of police officer turned serial killer, Rosemary Ndlovu, who murdered partners and family members after taking out funeral policies on them. More recently, an alarming story emerged of a prisoner and his wife making claims on lost items such as cellphones, laptops, and video cameras. By keeping the value of claimed items under R10 000, the prisoner avoided triggering an assessors visit and successfully defrauded insurers until he was finally caught. The real kicker? He was already serving 12 years in prison for defrauding Mutual and Federal Insurance in 2016.
As alarming as these kinds of scams are, they will become increasingly difficult to pull off. Even though incidences of fraudulent and dishonest claims have risen in recent years and scammers have become more sophisticated, the industry is making rapid gains in ensuring fraudsters cant get away with committing the crimes they do.
How fraudsters operate
According to Mishaya Chettiar, Executive Head at Everything.Insure, a big part of tackling fraudsters is knowing how they work and the techniques they use.
