Insurance fraud raises premiums for honest households. It also ruins the life of the person who thought ‘everyone inflates the sofa.’

Canada’s property and casualty system spends real money on fraud because staged collisions, dishonest vendors, and application lies are real. You do not need to become an investigator. You need to recognize when you are being recruited into someone else’s scheme, and when your own claim is drifting into a lie.

Auto: the too-helpful stranger

  • A sudden stop in traffic with no reason, followed by a crowd of “witnesses.”
  • Pressure to use a specific clinic or tow operator who appeared in minutes.
  • A request to share a version of events that did not happen so “we can both get a rental.”

Call police when appropriate, photograph the scene, and tell your insurer what you actually saw. Do not sign blank forms. Do not accept cash to “keep it off the books.”

Property: contractors and contents

After a hail or water event, some crews offer to “handle the insurance” if you sign an assignment and add a few extra rooms to the scope. Extra rooms that did not flood are fraud. Your signature does not become honest because a salesperson held the pen.

Contents lists that include a television you never owned are fraud. Forgetting a serial number is human. Inventing a jewellery collection is not.

Application fraud

Wrong address to get a cheaper territory, omitted drivers, a pleasure-use declaration on a car that is a courier vehicle, a “non-smoker” on a life application — these are the files that collapse at claim time. The premium you saved is the cheapest part of that story.

What to do if you suspect it

Tell your insurer’s fraud line or the Canadian Insurance Crime Prevention Bureau pathways your company uses. If you are the victim of a staged collision, you are not “causing trouble”; you are protecting your record. If you already submitted something you know is wrong, stop digging and get advice — continuing the lie is how a civil issue becomes a police issue.

A GTA example

A driver was rear-ended, then coached in the parking lot to visit a clinic that would “document whiplash for a bigger settlement.” They went home instead, reported the crash cleanly, and later learned the other vehicle had a pattern of similar losses. Their file stayed boring. Boring is the goal.

The honest-claim line

Document fully. Do not invent. Do not omit the driver who uses the car. Do not let a contractor write fiction on your letterhead. Fraud warning signs are often social — someone rushing you — as much as they are paperwork. Slow is an anti-fraud device.