How Do Ethics Affect the Suspicious Payments of Medical Insurance? – Evidence from COVID-19 Insurance in Japan

Abstract Several empirical studies have attempted to clarify what factors alleviate or exacerbate insurance fraud. However, no one has attempted to clarify whether ethics alleviates insurance fraud because there is a lack of sufficient data. Therefore, we use the responses of Japanese consumers to a questionnaire to analyze the characteristics of those who received insurance payments for COVID-19 infections. Our findings are as follows: First, those with lower ethical standards received COVID-19 insurance payments shortly after purchase that raises suspicions of insurance fraud. Second, those who obtained information from a typical messaging app (X(Twitter) or LINE) tended to receive suspicious insurance payments. Third, those with greater insurance knowledge tended not to receive suspicious insurance payments. Collectively, these results indicate what factors encourage and discourage insurance fraud.