o:35877 APPLICATION OF BENFORD’S LAW TO DETECT FRAUD IN THE NON-LIFE INSURANCE INDUSTRY: SOME RESULTS FROM SERBIA en We consider data from financial statements for 2022 for four insurance companies that operate in the non-life insurance industry sector in Serbia, with the aim to detect possible irregularities and fraud. Financial reporting is a subject to manipulative reporting, in order to improve the image of the business. As the insurance sector faces with many types of risks, where the some of them are the risks of fraud and data manipulations, Benford’s law may be applied over these data.557 It has become increasingly possible to analyze large amounts of data to detect trends, with the improvements in technology over the last decade. Hence, the use of Benford's law has now become feasible. The purpose of this research is to determine whether the data in financial statements (balance sheets and income statements) of the four insurance companies conforms to Benford's law. The study will answer on one main question: through testing the first digit and the second digit by Benford’s law, is there any manipulation (fraud) practiced by insurance companies? This research is supported by the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia by the Decision on the transfer of funds to finance the scientific research work of teaching staff at faculties in 2024, No. 451-03-65/2024-03/200097 of 5 February 2024. Keywords: insurance industry, Benford`s law, Serbia 1552100 978-86-403-1836-5 2025-02-11T13:39:22.776Z 44 no 46 Jelena Stanojević Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet 0000-0001-5668-5297 Mihailo Kočović person Vesna Rajić Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet person 0000-0002-4566-0147 application/pdf 409986 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:35877 no yes 18 70 92000004 11A03 TRANSFORMATION OF THE INSURANCE MARKET - RESPONSES TO NEW CHALLENGES 397 412 Beograd University of Belgrade, Faculty of Economics and Business 2024