INSIGHT: Fraudulent Transportation Insurance Claims Could Hit $200M

While the insurance industry grapples with the coming influx of Covid-19 litigation, transportation insurers would be wise to use their 2008 playbook for insight into how claims trends will unfold.

The last economic downturn saw an onslaught of fraudulent transportation claims—and this is likely to resurface in 2020 with 33 million Americans filing for unemployment over the past two months.

Cargo loss claims are particularly susceptible to declining economic conditions.

Freightwatch, a transportation logistics security company, found in its five-year review of U.S cargo theft that incidents increased 190% from 2006 to 2010.

Comparatively, in 2010 there were 899 incidents of cargo theft (according to Freightwatch) while in 2018 when times were much sunnier, there were only 592 such thefts (according to Security Magazine) which represents a 65% decrease.