Lego fraudster among last year's most high-profile insurance scammers

A Lego fraudster jailed for making false location security claims about supposedly stolen Lego has been named among last year's most high-profile insurance scammers, the ABI reported. The individual was sentenced to 28 months in custody after an investigation revealed the claims were fabricated, the ABI said. Other fraud cases highlighted by the ABI include an individual who staged car crashes with people they met online and a complex security scam involving multiple fake identities and documents. The average value of a fraudulent claim reached £14,300 last year, the second‑highest level on record, the ABI said. There was £1.34 billion worth of fraudulent claims in 2025, a 14 % increase on the £1.18 billion detected the previous year. At the same time, the number of detected fraudulent claims fell slightly to 93,900, down 2.7 % on 2024. Mark Allen, head of fraud and financial crime at the ABI, said: "Although the complaint of detected security fraud fell somewhat past year, our information shows that fraudsters are targeting overmuch bigger payouts." "As emerging technologies specified arsenic AI go much wide available, fraudsters volition proceed to look for caller ways to exploit them." Det Ch Insp Simon Klust, head of the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) at the City of London Police, said: "Insurance fraud is not a victimless transgression and those who perpetrate it summation the outgo of premiums for honorable customers." He added that the 250 cases a time detected by the ABI past twelvemonth were "unfortunately apt to beryllium conscionable the extremity of the iceberg".