NEATH: Woman faked four family deaths to claim £22,000 in travel insurance, arrested as she flew home

A woman from Neath invented the deaths of four family members to claim more than £22,000 in travel insurance, and was arrested at Heathrow Airport when she flew back from Australia to visit family.

Sally Harris, 31, who had emigrated to Australia, submitted five travel insurance claims for cancelled trips over a two-year period, City of London Police said.

Four of the claims stated that a close relative had died. The fifth cited injuries she said she had suffered.

The five claims were worth an average of more than £4,500 each.

An investigation by the force’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), the national police unit for insurance fraud, found the death certificates and the medical report supporting the claims were fake.

Harris was arrested at Heathrow in July as she returned to the UK, and was charged the same day.

She pleaded guilty, and was sentenced at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to 20 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years.

The suspended sentence means Harris will not serve the 20 months unless she commits another offence in the next two years.

She was also ordered to repay £22,703 to the insurer, Allianz, within 14 days.

The case comes amid a national push against bogus travel claims. In June, City of London Police said IFED had received 102 referrals for travel insurance fraud over the past five years, as the unit carried out a nationwide enforcement operation involving house searches, arrests and interviews under caution.

The wider problem is enormous: the Association of British Insurers found UK insurers detected £1.16 billion worth of fraudulent general insurance claims in 2024, up 2% on the year before.

Industry estimates put the true annual cost, including fraud that goes undetected, at more than £3 billion, adding an estimated £50 to every honest policyholder’s premium.