What makes TruStage the right choice for nearly 4,000 credit unions? 1
We don’t see members as a crowd of millions. And we don’t talk to them that way, either.
It’s about serving each member personally, with what they need for where they are in their lives.
It’s about empowering them to protect their families, their aspirations, their achievements.
We do this by offering a suite of insurance products designed tomeet an individual member’s needs and budget in each life stage.
TruStage helps protect over 21 million members — that’s onenew policy every 18 seconds. 1
And we build a connection on their terms with research-basedstrategic communications — using the tools and technology creditunion members are most comfortable with and prefer — and aremost likely to respond to.
1TruStage internal data, December 2020, 2TruStage internal data, December 2019
TruStage® Insurance products and programs are made available through TruStage Insurance Agency, LLC. Life insurance and AD&D insurance are issued by CMFG LifeInsurance Company. Auto and Home Insurance Programs are issued by leading insurance companies. The insurance offered is not a deposit and is not federally insured,sold, or guaranteed by your credit union. CUNA Mutual Group is the marketing name for CUNA Mutual Holding Company, a mutual insurance holding company, itssubsidiaries and affiliates. Corporate headquarters are located at 5910 Mineral Point Road, Madison WI 53705.
GEN-3327396.1-1120-1222 © CUNA Mutual Group, 2021 All Rights Reserved.
Find out more at cunamutual.com/TruStage.
Our 99%retentionrate speaksvolumes aboutour customers’satisfaction. 2
When it comes to
insurance, TruStage
is the right choice.
TruStage®
INSURANCE PROGRAM
In Brief
CUs Prep
for Synthetic
Fraud
ne residual benefitof the pandemic hasbeen a reductionin instances of syn-thetic identity fraud – a criminalstrategy that involves cobblingtogether real and fake personalinformation to open fraudulentaccounts or lines of credit with thegoal of stealing or moving money.But the financial institutions thatare often targeted by syntheticfraud perpetrators shouldn’t relaxyet, because it’s expected to surgewhen payments put off by pandemic loan forbearance programsstart to come due.
That’s according to new research from the Chicago-basedcredit reporting agency Tran-sUnion and Boston-based research firm Aite Group. As of thethird quarter of 2020 (the latestdata available), outstanding synthetic fraud balances for auto,credit card, retail credit card andpersonal loans totaled $855 million, a drop from the $1.05 billion reported two years prior, according to TransUnion’s analysis.In addition, TransUnion foundnew auto loan and credit card accounts tied to synthetic fraudstersdeclined by 23% and 32%, respectively, from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020 –down to their lowest points sincethe company began tracking themin 2016.
The decline can be attributed
to several factors, explained Lee
Cookman, TransUnion’s direc-
tor of product strategy of global
fraud and identity solutions. First,
because the pandemic led to the
implementation of loan forbear-
ance programs, there were fewer
sales of credit profile numbers
(CPNs) – alternatives to Social Se-
curity numbers sold by credit re-
pair companies to people who are
unable to obtain access to credit
through traditional means, such
as individuals without a govern-
ment-issued ID, or who have poor
credit or a criminal record. Sellers
tout CPNs as easy paths to loans
for struggling consumers, but
because they allow prospective
borrowers to hide their true iden-
tities, they’re in fact the basis of a
common type of synthetic fraud.
The slowdown also stemmed
from financial institutions’ grow-
ing use of solutions designed to
thwart synthetic fraud, as well
as the fact that fraudsters shifted
their focus in 2020, taking advan-
tage of new opportunities such as
the Paycheck Protection Program
to exploit consumers, according
to Cookman.
Once forbearance programs
reach their end, however, des-
peration to pay bills will increase
among consumers, leading to a
likely uptick in synthetic fraud.
Aite Group estimated that syn-
thetic fraud losses for unsecured
U.S. credit products such as auto,
credit card, retail credit card and
personal loans will grow from a
total of $1.8 billion in 2020 to $2.43
billion in 2023.
“We believe this slowdown [in
synthetic fraud] was compounded
by fraudsters who went elsewhere
and could be lying in wait to take
advantage of pandemic loan for-
bearance programs that may not
have come due yet,” Shai Cohen,
SVP of Global Fraud Solutions
at TransUnion, said. “Once syn-
thetic fraud reemerges, which we
think it will, companies must be
ready.” n
