Fraud affects every industry and companies serious about targeting fraudsters are taking some new steps to make it more difficult for them to succeed in their fraudulent endeavors. A recent study of more than 800 fraud mitigation professionals from the insurance, financial services, retail, health care, government and communications industries was conducted by the LexisNexis Fraud Defense Network in 2015 and 2016.

It looked at the impact of fraud that crosses industries to determine if there was evidence that potential perpetrators also committed other types of fraud. The overwhelming answer from insurance professionals was yes, evidence of cross-industry fraud exists in a majority of cases. Moreover, these cases have moderate-to-high financial repercussions.

It's been estimated that the cost of fraud to the insurance industry could be as high as $250 billion annually. Even more sobering — anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of every claim dollar spent pays for fraud in one way or another. So it's not surprising that insurance organizations indicated that they see the most cross-industry fraud and believe it impacts their own investigations more than other industries, especially compared to government and health care organizations.