A trusted employee takes cartons of stock and small equipment home after closing, then marks them as ‘damaged’ in your system. You only notice when popular items keep showing as out of stock and a stocktake confirms the missing goods.

May cover direct financial loss when an employee unlawfully takes your property or stock, alone or in collusion, subject to wording.

A staff member processes a string of ‘customer refunds’ to a card they control, using real receipt numbers. The daily takings look normal until you review the refund report and confirm the customers never requested the refunds.

May cover direct financial loss caused by employee dishonesty, like fraudulent refunds that cost your business money, subject to terms.

A payroll officer updates an employee’s bank details to their own, then runs the next pay cycle. The payment goes out and they delete the change request. You spot the mismatch when reconciling payroll and the bank file.

Business crime insurance may cover direct financial loss from an employee’s dishonest act, including unauthorised taking of money, subject to wording and limits.

Your bookkeeper transfers small amounts into their own account each week, then edits the ledger to hide it. You discover the missing money during month end checks and confirm it was an intentional, unauthorised act by an employee.

May cover direct financial loss when an employee steals company money and you discover it during the policy period, subject to wording.

Your finance admin uses company funds to place risky share and crypto trades without approval. The trades go bad and you lose $30,000. You claim under crime cover for the missing money, saying it was an employee act, even though it was caused by trading activity.

Unauthorised trading losses are often excluded, even if an employee placed the trades. This is treated as a market loss, not theft.

You catch a staff member skimming cash and confront them, but you keep them on while you ‘gather evidence’. Over the next two weeks, more money goes missing. You lodge a claim for the extra loss that happened after you first became aware of the dishonesty.

Policies may exclude extra loss after you discover employee dishonesty. Once discovered, you must act quickly to stop further loss.

A supplier email is spoofed and your staff member updates bank details, then pays a $24,500 invoice to the scammer. The money leaves your account with your authorisation. You later learn the supplier never changed details and you try to claim the payment back.

Social engineering scams are often excluded, where you are tricked into authorising a payment to a fraudster, even if the email looked real.

An employee steals $18,000 over three months. You recover some funds, but the bigger hit is the lost sales while you pause online orders, refund customers and rebuild trust. You claim for the drop in revenue and future bookings linked to the incident.

Usually covers direct financial loss only. Consequential loss like lost revenue or future sales is often excluded under the wording.