SINGAPORE – In just six months, more than $21 million was lost to insurance services scams here, a new scam variant that emerged in 2025.

There were 791 such cases in the first half of 2025, said the police on Aug 30 in releasing the mid-year scam statistics.

Scammers would impersonate officers from companies such as “NTUC” and UnionPay and convince victims they have existing insurance packages. To cancel these packages, scammers would ask victims for personal details and to transfer money for the cancellation to be verified.

Victims would be promised a refund after their insurance package is cancelled, but would only realise they were duped after making multiple transfers without receiving the promised refunds.

Insurance services scam did not surface in the police’s 2024 annual scams brief, but is now ranked seventh among the top 10 scams of concern in the first half of 2025.

The average amount lost to insurance services scam was about $27,000, and around three in 10 victims were aged 65 and above.

Phone calls and WhatsApp were the most common channels used by insurance services scammers to contact potential victims.

The police said since May, they have observed a new money transfer method in insurance services scams which involve fund transfers to credit cards.

They said: “There has been a pattern of scammers instructing victims to make fund transfers from their bank accounts to credit cards provided by the scammers.

“These transfers are believed to be done to increase credit limits, enabling large purchases of jewellery and precious metals, particularly gold bars.”

The police added this modus operandi is also used in government official impersonation scams.

In other insurance services scam cases, the scammer would guide the victim through WhatsApp’s screen-sharing function to increase bank transaction limits and perform the bank transfers.

The police said there were also cases where scammers impersonated government officials or staff from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to assist victims in the cancellation of the insurance packages.

More malware scams

Scammers have consistently found new ways to dupe victims, with new scam types emerging over the years.

In 2023,

malware scams, which

were unheard of previously, were among the top 10 scams with over $34 million lost.

Scammers would get victims to download apps on their mobile phones under the pretext of paying for goods and services.

These apps contained malware, and when victims downloaded them, the scammers would take control of their devices.

There were 99 such cases in the first half of 2024, which jumped to 363 cases during the same period in 2025.

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But the amount lost to malware scams dropped from $125.4 million in the first half of 2024 to $5.5 million in the first six months of 2025.

The reason for the huge losses in 2024 was because of one case that involved $125 million.

Four in 10 malware scam victims were aged 50 to 64, with Facebook and TikTok being the most common channels for scammers to contact victims.

Emphasising the need to clamp down on scammers and keep up public education efforts, Minister of State for Home Affairs Goh Pei Ming said: “Every member of the public must also remain alert to scam tactics and take personal responsibility to safeguard themselves and their families.”

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