AI: a curse or a blessing? (4)

1 To get straight to the point: is AI mainly a curse or a blessing for you?

"I am a positive person, so I see AI first and foremost as a positive development, which of course also involves risks. The big task for all of us is to learn to use it as a tool and to remain critical of the outcome. And at its core, I see AI primarily as an amplifier. It strengthens the possibilities of people with good intentions, fortunately the vast majority, but unfortunately also those of malicious people. Fraudsters and cybercriminals can operate faster, more professionally and on an even larger scale. Citizens and businesses must learn to deal with this. Something that we at the Center for Combating Insurance Crime (CBV) are working together with insurers."

2 How do you use AI yourself?

"Privately mainly to save time. With a busy family life, that is extra valuable. For example, I recently wanted to remove a tree from the garden. With AI, I quickly found out whether a permit was needed for that. That was not the case, and now we have a nice terrace. At the same time, AI makes me think. My children grow up with it, while I myself have learned to search for information and critically assess it without AI tools. How do we ensure that they continue to do so? I sometimes worry about that, but I am also confident that they will eventually find a good mode in this."

"In my work, I find AI especially interesting because it helps me in a field that is becoming increasingly complex and challenging. For example, if I am looking for case law or want to quickly understand a lot of regulations and information, I often use ChatGPT or Copilot. That can be very efficient as a first step, as long as I keep thinking and controlling myself."

3 If you look at the past few years, what has changed the most in the way insurance fraud and crime manifest itself? And what role does AI play in that development?

"That is without a doubt digitisation. That sounds obvious, but almost all processes of insurers and their chain partners have become digital, from underwriting to claims handling. And criminals move along with this and actively look for weak spots in this environment that they can exploit. Ten years ago, we had contact with a handful of cyber specialists from the CBV. There are now more than 250."

He continues: "AI is accelerating these digital developments once again, so that the race with fraudsters and criminals continues. With AI, you can now create or manipulate convincing phishing emails, websites, images and documents at lightning speed. Or think of tools that allow you to find vulnerabilities in business processes faster and faster. To then hack them and steal and misuse personal data. The combination of rapid digital exploitation of vulnerabilities and misuse of data blurs the distinction between fraud and cybercrime. Data leaks and (identity) fraud often come up in the conversations with the fraud and cyber specialists we work with."

4 Digital fraud and cybercrime are therefore logically given explicit attention in the CBV vision Weerbaar en Waakzaam (2025). What do recent developments require of insurers?

"Especially speed and decisiveness, because only then will the gap between criminals and insurers remain manageable. Insurers must therefore identify, resolve and share vulnerabilities in products, processes and systems even earlier. This requires the use of new technology such as AI, but also cooperation between different disciplines within an organisation."

"The employees are at least as important, because anyone can have to deal with sophisticated social engineering via email, WhatsApp, telephone or even a video call. That is why risk awareness is important. Employees must not only know the risks, but also know how to act."

"And when using AI, insurers themselves must of course be very careful. Technology can mean a lot in fraud detection and investigation, but decisions that impact people cannot just be left to a system. Human assessment, transparency and explainability remain essential."

5 Insurers do not have to fight the battle alone, of course. How does the CBV help to recognise and tackle new forms of digital fraud and cybercrime more quickly?

"By facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration. This is and remains crucial, precisely because criminals are even faster with AI and scale up their activities more easily. And if a fraudster or a criminal network finds a successful method with one insurer, there is a good chance that other insurers will also have to deal with it."

"The CBV plays a central role in this. Thanks to our Protocol Incidentenwaarschuwingssysteem Financiële Instellingen (PIFI) and the insurance Computer Emergency Response Team (i-CERT) among other things, signals, experiences and threat information can be shared within the set frameworks. We also work with other parties such as chain partners, public parties and experts for specialist knowledge and solutions. That is ultimately what our vision is all about: seeking connection and together ensuring that criminals do not outsmart us."