KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 (Bernama) -- Insurance fraud, estimated at RM1.74 billion in Malaysia last year, is clearly a "big business" and more alarming is, the public apathy surrounding it.

"This apathy at times, unfortunately, even finds its way into our criminal justice system," Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Lee Chee Leong said Monday.

Research on the public perception of insurance fraud concluded that on average, 30 per cent of the public respondents believed, it is acceptable to pad an insurance claim, he added.

"(Hence), there seems to be a great willingness among normally law abiding people to tolerate low levels of insurance fraud.

"However, the burden of combating such crime should not merely rest with the public sector alone, but also the private sector, particularly, the insurers themselves," Lee said in his opening remarks at the International Insurance Fraud Conference 2010, here.

He also said that the Association of Malaysian Loss Adjusters (AMLA) and the Malaysian Insurance Institute (MII) should perhaps take the lead to educate society on the consequences of promoting insurance fraud and how they can help combat the issue.

According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau of the Unites States, fraud inflates the cost of each consumer's insurance premiums by US$200 to US$300 annually.

"Insurance fraud pushes up the cost of everything you buy and use because every company that produces goods or services, pays for insurance as a cost of doing business.

"Going forward, the insurers must also continue to improve their standards of fraud detection by adopting the international best practices and share data and information relating to fraud activities among themselves," Lee said.

Meanwhile, the MII's Chief Executive Officer, Khadijah Abdullah suggested that there should be a unified statutory body to oversee fraud in the industry and compile appropriate data.

"Currently, associations and Bank Negara Malaysia, have their own supervision over the issue but there is no single body that can help compile the information," she said.