Hard times always bring out the worst in people – at least, that’s the expectation. Insurance fraud investigators have been bracing for the bad economy to tempt more policyholders into attempted fraud, and some investigators affirm they’ve had a busy 2009.

But others say the supposed wave of frauds has been mostly hype with little evidence – for now – to back it up.

“Everybody’s looking to associate, in the worst way, the bad economy with more crime,” said Francis Scafidi, spokesman for the National Insurance Crime Bureau. But, he says there’s no way his organization can claim that fraud is spiking significantly as a result of the poor economy.

Scafidi’s contention is notable because his organization recently released numbers that show a rise in suspicious claims coming through its database. Scafidi says although the percentages of suspicious claims referred to his organization have risen significantly, the incident numbers themselves are fairly pedestrian.

By The Numbers

For example, he said, the NICB reported that suspicious hail damage reports rose 407 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2008 – an impressive-sounding percentage, but the incident numbers are much less dramatic: 14 suspicious hail incidents were reported in the first quarter of 2008, while 71 were reported in 2009.

Overall, about 18,000 suspicious claims were reported last year compared to about 20,000 suspicious claims reported this year, he said.

On a statewide level, it’s a similar story.

Anthony DiPaolo, chief of investigations for the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts, said officials have been poised over the past year to intercept more troublesome claims.

Hard numbers aren’t yet available from the state’s bureau, so DiPaolo says it’s difficult to pin any trends down – but he’s noticed only perhaps a slight increase in claims referred to his organization.

“Right now, we haven’t seen a significant increase in the number of referrals from this quarter in comparison from last year,” he said.

Others strongly disagree. Neal Lyons, head of Westborough-based L&W Investigations, which examines suspicious claims for companies across the country, said he’s definitely much busier than last year.

“Absolutely, it’s happening,” he said.

His organization’s caseload has increased 20 percent this year over the same period in 2008, although Lyons declined to say the number of cases his firm was working on for proprietary reasons.

And although L&W doesn’t come back with “guilty” or “innocent” verdicts as a result of investigations – it merely reports its findings to the insurance companies that hire it – Lyons affirmed that investigators were seeing more activity they deemed to be suspicious.

Cloudy Claims

Every type of insurance sees its fraudulent claims, he said, but pointed to unemployment and disability or workers’ compensation fraud as the popular potential moneymakers. Lyons said fraud collection efforts are often piecemeal and only include criminal fraud activity – insurance companies often don’t report all their suspicious claims, which obscures the real extent of the fraudulent activity.

Lyons suspects other fraud figures are modest because many entities that monitor insurance claims – usually third-party administrators that process employees’ health and disability claims – are under stress to cut costs right now, and that means they are less likely to pursue insurance stories that sound fishy. Easier to pay the claim, rather than take the expense of investigating.

Other insurance companies take the opposite tack, Lyons said, and become increasingly eager to look into claims, leading to more investigations.

John Fleming sees extra vigilance among insurers, but hasn’t seen a real spike in fraud. Fleming is a spokesman for Cunningham Lindsey – a business that provides agents to investigate insurance claims and has several Massachusetts and Connecticut offices –and he has seen the economy affect the kinds of claims that come in – but not in the expected ways.

Lots of smaller claims are coming in, he said; in better times, many people opt not to make claims on small incidents because they figure it’s not worth the trouble. But now policyholders are watching every dollar, so they’re calling in everything.

People who are inclined toward fraud are probably more likely to do so during rough times, he said, but these small claimants often don’t have anything nefarious in mind.

“What we’re seeing is more the average Joe who’s having a rough time, trying to take care of his family,” Fleming said.