Customer insurance frauds: the influence of fraud type, moral intensity and fairness perception

The purpose of this paper is to examine customers’ ethical attitudes (EA) and intentions toward two types of insurance frauds. This study proposes that the factors, such as fraud types (i.e. opportunistic and planned insurance fraud), moral intensity and fairness perception (FP), can affect the customers’ acceptance of the insurance frauds.

To test the research hypotheses of this study, Taiwanese insurance customers are invited in the empirical investigation, and a scenario-based questionnaire is used to collect the data. The hypotheses of this study are tested by using a partial least squares regression.

The results show that moral intensity constructs and FP significantly relate to the respondents’ acceptance of insurance frauds, while fraud types also have significant impacts on the respondents’ perceptions of moral intensity and fairness.

There is no research which has examined the relationships among fraud types, moral intensity, FP, demographic variables and customers’ EA and intentions toward insurance frauds. Understanding the relationships among these variables could provide implications for those involved in the practice of anti-fraud programs.