There are lies — and then there are statistics. Sometimes they can be identical. The Insurance Information Institute recently sent me their latest edition of Fact Book 2005. The details are very similar to those in the 2002 edition, just updated a bit. Fraud, they say, is still costing the property/casualty insurance industry $29 billion (in 2003), and the entire insurance industry is shelling out “between $85 and $120 billion a year.”

So, I wondered, with all this cost of fraud (something like $600 per capita), why are insurers still keeping their claim adjusters chained to their desks? According to the Fact Book 2005, only 17 states even require insurers to have anti-fraud programs.

A few pages before the fraud figures is a chart showing how household spending is divvied up among various categories. Housing leads the list, with 31.9 percent, transportation (autos and commuter trains, I suppose) at 16.9 percent, food at 13.2 percent, clothing at 4.3 percent, and entertainment at 5.1 percent. Health care takes up 2.9 percent, and all the various types of insurance cost an average of 6.8 percent. (I must be over-insured, because among life, health, long-term care, car, auto, home, floaters, and umbrella insurance, I'm running about 25 percent.)