Articles From the Team

Working in Insurance Fraud – 3 Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is it easy to retrain into insurance fraud work?

The significant growth that is currently prevalent in the majority of fraud departments in Manchester has resulted in substantial opportunities for retraining into handling insurance fraud work.  However, there is a misconception that virtually anyone will be considered for this.

The most important pre-requisite from my clients is a background in litigated work, with the majority looking for candidates who have carried their own caseload of litigated claimant or defendant personal injury work.   Candidates with only pre litigated experience are not usually considered, nor are those from a purely criminal or commercial litigation background.

2.  Is all this growth in insurance fraud work a bubble just waiting to burst?

Other areas of legal practice such as consumer credit litigation, scheme disease work and domestic conveyancing have previously shown periods of rapid growth and then large scale redundancies when the work has dried up or during an economic downturn.  Many candidates considering moving into fraud work may be concerned that a similar situation could happen with the defendant fraud sector, but all indications are that this won’t be the case.

All the indicators are that this won’t be the case.  Insurance fraud is growing significantly because insurers are continuing to see the value in combating fraud and the considerable savings they are making on costs.  At some point work levels will even out, but current estimates indicate that there is at least £1billion of fraud work still to tackle.  Growth will continue in the short to medium term.  Following that fraud will almost certainly mimic the defendant insurance market and prove to be one of the areas of legal practice least susceptible to the ups and downs of the market.

3. Can I progress?

There are over 400 people working in defendant insurance fraud in Greater Manchester and by the end of 2012 all indicators are that this will hit the 500 mark.  There is a diverse mix of large established departments, smaller growing teams and newly created departments.  For those that want it, that have the ability and necessary characteristics there are opportunities for supervisory roles and advancement to Associate and Partner level.

Increasingly fraud departments are operating on a meritocracy basis with salary levels and progression being based not on number of years of post qualification experience.