Insurance Bureau of Canada’s (IBC’s) primary goal in providing investigative services is to protect the premiums of honest policyholders by ensuring that insurance companies pay only legitimate and honest claims.
IBC has an 80-year history of providing investigative services to Canada's home, car and business insurers. IBC focuses its investigative efforts on organized insurance crime rings - specifically, rings involved in auto theft and/or filing fraudulent injury claims. In Canada, organized insurance crime continues to be a destructive and costly offence and represents a significant cost to insurers and policyholders - about $542 million annually. Once related costs for health care, police, emergency services and the courts are factored in, the annual cost of auto theft to Canadians amounts to $1 billion.
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IBC is uniquely positioned to combat insurance crime
Effective
lobbyist. As the voice of Canada's home, car and business insurers, IBC can lobby governments for legislative changes that would deter insurance criminals. For example, IBC has requested that auto theft be recognized as a serious, violent crime (rather than a mere property crime) in both the Criminal Code of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act. If passed by the federal government, Bill C-26 would make this change and several others to give law enforcement officials the tools they need to more effectively combat auto theft.
Cross-country data. As a national
association, IBC has access to insurance crime data from across the
country, which it uses to detect trends within and across regions.
Investigative body. IBC is designated
as an investigative body under federal privacy legislation – the
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
– meaning it is able to exchange information with insurers for
the purposes of preventing and detecting insurance crime.
Experienced investigators. IBC’s
investigators have extensive insurance and policing experience. They
have the unique knowledge and technological tools required for investigating
organized criminal activity related to insurance.
Crime-fighting
partners. IBC is a trusted partner with other insurance-crime-fighting
agencies nationally and internationally. These partnerships mean that
important information gets shared between IBC and, for example, police
forces, making for effective investigations and increasing the likelihood
of charges being laid.
IBC has an excellent track record as an investigative force. Every year, the work of IBC's investigative services results in millions of dollars in savings for insurance companies and their policyholders.
