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Crime Prevention and the Insurance Industry (From Business and Crime Prevention, P 151-195, 1997, Marcus Felson and Ronald V Clarke, eds.)

NCJ Number
165681
Author(s)
R A Litton
Date Published
1997
Length
45 pages
Annotation
An insurance practitioner in the United Kingdom explores the means by which the insurance industry motivates its policyholders to take crime prevention measures and the ways in which criminologists can use the provision of property insurance as a means of promoting good crime prevention practice.
Abstract
Crime prevention can be hampered by a lack of incentives. The insurance industry is uniquely positioned to motivate its policyholders to take crime prevention measures by offering property owners financial incentives for taking such measures. Criminological research in the areas of repeat victimization and the relationship between risk and the setting is important to the insurance industry, because much of insurers' current efforts are intuitive rather than founded on research findings. Criminologists can help insurers identify the crime prevention techniques that will lead to fewer or less expensive burglaries. Insurance also has possible criminogenic aspects, as indicated by the incidence and impacts of insurance fraud. The British insurance industry has initiated several measures against insurance fraud, including the Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register, a computer database; a computerized claims database; the Equipment Register, a commercial computer database of mobile construction equipment; and an Art Loss Register. Tables, figures, note, and 55 references (Author abstract modified)