Criminal offence of insurance fraud in Serbian law with reference to comparative law

Insurance fraud is one of the problems that insurers have been struggling with for years but have not been able to fully overcome. Some frauds are difficult to recognize, and some are difficult to prove. The largest number of cases of abuse of insurance rights are represented by the so-called soft frauds, which in most cases take the form of so- called petty crime. However, their massiveness causes great financial losses to insurers. Serious frauds, when an insured case is deliberately provoked with the intention of obtaining compensation from the insurance company illegally, are increasingly being organized by professional fraudsters. Over time, the civil law protection mechanisms against insurance fraud have been supplemented by criminal law. This has also been done in Serbian law by incriminating the criminal offense of insurance fraud under Article 223a of the Criminal Code. In this paper, we have considered whether Serbian law adequately sanctions insurance fraud committed by insurance beneficiaries, alone or with the help and support of other persons, and which is subject to criminal prosecution. The research has shown that the wording of Art. 223a of the CC is not appropriate and does not satisfy the needs of insurance practice. Although the change in the wording of the criminal offence of insurance fraud in Art. 223a was welcomed in theory, in practice this provision is not applied. It can be concluded that the expected effect was not achieved and that the legal definition of the criminal offence of insurance fraud in Art. 223a of the Criminal Code did not fulfill the purpose for which this offence was introduced. The provision of Art. 223 CC could survive and “come to life” if certain changes were made to the legal definition of this criminal offense, taking into account the solutions from German, Croatian and Slovenian law that we have listed in this paper. Тhe author finally proposes amendments to the legal definition of the criminal offense of insurance fraud under Art. 223a of the Criminal Code.