Surge in ghost broking spooks insurance sector

Ghost broking fraud is surging via social media and identity re-use, leaving victims exposed and underlining the need for stronger cross‑sector intelligence. Vicki Summerhayes reports.

In recent years the issue of ghost broking has garnered increasing attention, with campaigns from the Association of British Insurers and the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department raising awareness of its significant impact on both victims and the industry.

“Ghost broking is a material, persistent and growing threat,” says Ben Fletcher, director of fraud and financial crime at Allianz, with recent figures from the insurer revealing it accounted for around £15 million in policy fraud in 2025.

Data from Synectics Solutions’ National SIRA intelligence consortium shows a 93% increase in victims of impersonation fraud having their identities used in ghost-brokered policies over the past year. While this huge uplift is partially indicative of improvements in insurer detection, it is a constantly evolving battle. Fraudsters are continually testing controls, adapting their approaches and seeking out new targets for manipulation.

When selling fake policies, ghost brokers often target people who don’t necessarily understand insurance, and/or people who may be at the higher end of the premium range. This typically includes younger people, new drivers and recent arrivals to the UK who may be more accustomed to agent-based distribution models in their home countries.

Technology advances and changing buying habits are also creating the perfect conditions for ghost broking to flourish. Social media is an increasingly important channel for younger generations, with research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealing that half of young drivers have bought insurance through social media or messaging apps.

In tandem, AI tools are making it far easier and quicker for fraudsters to create very convincing and legitimate-looking social media pages, websites and fake policy documents. Account takeovers following the initial fraud are also more common.

Wide-reaching impact

For its victims, ghost broking has wide-reaching personal and financial consequences. For those victims who believe they hold a motor policy, driving without valid cover carries the risk of personal liability, driving penalties and vehicle seizure. This is in addition to direct financial loss. A fraud record can also significantly impact individuals’ future access to insurance.

It’s not a one-off policy fraud. Our data shows that 66% of stolen identities linked to ghost broking are then re-used.

Carina Harrison, Synectics Solutions

There are wider implications too. Research from Aviva shows that one in six young drivers who bought a fake car insurance policy via social media said they had become victims of identity theft. 

“Ghost brokers are manipulating victims into buying fake policies, then harvesting and re-using their personal details,” explains Carina Harrison, insurance fraud solutions consultant at Synectics Solutions.

It’s not just those who purchase ghost-brokered policies whose personal details are at risk.

“Ghost brokers may use another kind of compromised identity to bind a policy at a reduced rate,” says Harrison. “They tend to target a particular demographic, such as those living in lower premium postcodes. 

“Synectics Solutions’ data reveals that around 70% of these victims are male, with 62% aged between 50 and 65.”

There is also the downstream risk of these compromised identities to consider. “It’s not a one-off policy fraud. Our data shows that 66% of stolen identities linked to ghost broking are then re-used, with insurance often only the starting point for sustained exploitation across the financial system,” says Harrison.

This exploitation typically plays out over a prolonged period. Synectics Solutions’ analysis reveals that, once compromised, most victim identities remain active for more than three months. In one extreme case, the firm saw a single identity recycled over 100 times across multiple products, including to apply for mobile contracts, credit cards and loans.

Complexities of victim identification

Insurers have an increasing responsibility to identify and protect these victims of identity exploitation. 

“Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, insurers must prevent foreseeable harm to consumers,” says Harrison. “For ghost broking that means not only detecting invalid policies but also protecting consumers from the significant long-term negative impacts of persistent malicious identity re-use.”

Insurers should therefore be proactively contacting victims and helping them put steps in place to protect their identity, signposting them to Action Fraud or credit services, for example.

However, the sophistication, scale and speed of ghost-broking activity add to the complexities of early detection and victim identification. While industry bodies are working hard to coordinate activity and improve consumer awareness, it remains very difficult to detect.

Even once ghost broking has been discovered, insurers have a real challenge to identify and locate victims. 

“If we identify a policy linked to a ghost broker, we try to speak to the customer to understand whether they are an unsuspecting victim, a complicit participant looking for a cheaper premium, or someone who has had their identity stolen to facilitate the fraud,” explains Allianz’s Fletcher. “But that in itself can be a challenge as the ghost broker will often have changed the name, and/or the postal or email address,” he says.

In trying to contact the policy-purchasing victim, insurers may instead be contacting the person who has had their identity compromised, or simply an email address made up for the sake of the fraud.

“With ghost brokers using multiple combinations of real and fake details to create their ‘customer’ identities, it can be incredibly challenging to pinpoint what’s real and what’s fake,” adds Harrison.

Fraudsters are not restricted by industry boundaries. They act across multiple products, firms and sectors.

Ben Fletcher, Allianz

Insurer response: the value of data sharing

Faced with these difficulties, the insurance sector is working hard to improve victim identification and strengthen defences. 

“Vulnerabilities are quickly and repeatedly exploited,” says Ben Leech, counter fraud strategy director at Keoghs. “Closing these gaps requires stronger verification controls, better use of data and coordinated industry action.”

Data sharing is seen as central to the industry’s response and there is growing recognition that these fraudsters operate well beyond the insurance sector. “We do a really good job of data and intelligence sharing on ghost broking patterns within the industry, but there is always more we can do,” says Fletcher. “Fraudsters are not restricted by industry boundaries. They act across multiple products, firms and sectors. The more the insurance industry can do to connect and share data effectively with other sectors the better.”

This can be a valuable tool in helping insurers to identify and distinguish genuine victims from complicit participants. 

“Cross-sector intelligence allows insurers to understand if a type of activity or victim has been seen before. If someone has a perfect record with multiple products, live policies and applications, there’s a good chance they are a genuine victim,” explains Harrison. “But if shared data reveals inconsistencies, it helps build a picture of whether that person is complicit in the fraud.”

Leech also underlines the critical role that cross-industry intelligence sharing plays in spotting connections and patterns. “Pooling insight accelerates the detection of organised fraud rings,” he says.

Vulnerabilities are quickly and repeatedly exploited.

Ben Leech, Keoghs

“Insurers won’t get the big picture just by looking at their own data,” adds Harrison. “Tapping into shared intelligence can identify potentially hundreds of connected policies and wider financial services fraud. This real-time intelligence improves the ability of insurers to stop fraudulent policies before inception.”

Alongside greater collaboration, insurers are investing in technology to improve detection while minimising disruption for legitimate customers. 

“At Allianz, we use a combination of advanced technology and data-sharing tools, with human-led, technology-enabled investigations to verify identities, making sure we speak to the customer where we can,” says Fletcher.

While insurers may seek to conduct more checks to ensure there is no misrepresentation and to verify identities, Fletcher cautions that “…insurers need to strike the right balance between journeys that are as frictionless as possible for genuine customers, while having the right controls in place to stop fraudsters”.

Harrison sees this as another valuable benefit of data sharing. “By enabling insurers to run real-time data and identity verification in the background, it avoids unnecessary disruption and means that insurers only need to contact customers when absolutely necessary,” she says.

Insurers are also implementing tools such as digital footprint and digital identity solutions. Leech suggests that wider adoption of multi‑factor authentication would materially reduce account takeover and impersonation risks, adding that “…careful implementation would enable stronger security without compromising the customer experience”.

Yet technology alone will not solve the problem. “The single biggest challenge is how tenacious ghost brokers are and the speed with which they change their approaches,” says Fletcher. “It is imperative that controls, tools and systems are agile and responsive, enabling insurers to quickly identify new tactics and adjust, while still accepting genuine customers.” 

As ghost brokers continue to adapt, and as stolen identities are re-used across multiple sectors, insurers will increasingly need to look beyond detecting individual fraudulent policies.

Stronger cross-sector intelligence, earlier identification of compromised identities and more proactive support for victims will be essential to limiting the long-term impact of this rapidly evolving fraud.

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