Enthusiast Motor Insurance has committed to sharing its claims data with the Insurance Council of Australia’s (ICA) national fraud detection system, adding another insurer to the growing network working to close the intelligence gaps that organised crime exploits.
The agreement was formalised at the ICA’s Sydney offices by Stacy Vickers (pictured left), chief executive officer of Enthusiast Motor Insurance, and Andrew Gill (pictured right), chief executive officer of counter fraud at the ICA.
Enthusiast, which covers classic, modified, imported, and performance cars and motorcycles, will begin feeding claims data into the platform in its next onboarding phase.
ICA members detected $560 million in opportunistic motor and property fraud in 2023, according to the ICA’s counter-fraud and scams announcement. A further $400 million a year is estimated to go undetected. Together, those figures approach $1 billion in insurance fraud costs that are absorbed into claims experience and reflected in premium pricing.
Average comprehensive motor premiums have risen 42% since 2019, with a typical annual policy now exceeding $1,050, according to the ICA. Repair costs, supply chain disruption, and labour shortages are the primary drivers, but fraud remains an avoidable contributor.
Around half of all Australian households now rate their home insurance as unaffordable or barely affordable, according to the National Insurance Brokers Association’s (NIBA) response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) final insurance monitoring report in July 2026.
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Vickers said fraud is an industry-wide problem that requires a collective response. “Every honest policyholder in this country is paying for fraud. A slice of every premium ends up in the criminals’ pockets and organised crime is targeting insurance books across Australia. We need to stamp it out and the ICA system has huge value for everyone involved – apart from the criminals,” he said.
He added: “For our customers, it’s about keeping prices down for the honest, hardworking enthusiast. They look after their cars properly and are honest in their dealings. They shouldn’t be funding people who aren’t.”
Vickers also issued a direct warning: “To anyone thinking of lodging a fraudulent claim with us, your details will be shared with the Insurance Council’s fraud division and other insurers, and referred to police where appropriate. Don’t bring it to us.”
The ICINA platform, announced in November 2025 in partnership with EXL and Shift Technology, consolidates claims data from participating insurers into one secure system. It cross-references data to identify patterns that no single insurer can spot alone, including organised networks recycling the same vehicles, damage photos, or injury claims across multiple companies.
At the Claims Leaders Summit in Sydney in May 2026, Gill said insurer cooperation had already uncovered tens of millions of dollars in fraud. In one case, cross-referenced records revealed that a single claimant’s property had reportedly been struck by lightning 41 times.
Gill described organised fraud operators as “very organised but not particularly sophisticated,” relying on the assumption that insurers do not share information. That approach to detecting insurance fraud through industry-wide collaboration rather than insurer-by-insurer investigation is central to ICINA’s model.
“Fraudsters count on insurers not talking to each other. ICINA closes that gap, and every insurer that joins makes it harder for organised crime to take money from honest customers. We welcome Enthusiast’s commitment to work with industry to eliminate insurance fraud,” Gill said.
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For brokers, fraud costs sit inside every premium they place. Each insurer that joins the ICINA network adds data that strengthens the system’s ability to detect fraudulent patterns, and any reduction in claims leakage could ease one of the cost pressures shaping renewal conversations.
Brooke Tarr, director and shareholder at KBI Insurance Brokers in Perth and Western Australia’s Broker of the Year 2026, said the link between claims costs and premiums is direct. “The premiums are naturally going to become more affordable if you’re actually doing the work,” Tarr said, as reported in a recent analysis of how premium affordability is affecting brokers and their clients across Australia.
On the claims side, brokers should be aware that clients placing claims with participating insurers may face additional verification steps as detection systems grow more sophisticated. Managing client expectations around processing times is worth building into conversations, particularly for motor claims where fraud activity is concentrated.
NIBA CEO Richard Klipin noted in the Insurance Outlook Report 2026 that “when something goes wrong, the first person you call is your broker.” That role takes on added weight when the systems designed to catch fraud also touch the claims experience for honest policyholders, a dynamic explored in a recent analysis of how storm-related fraud is putting broker conduct records under regulatory scrutiny.
