The MetLife Study of Elder Financial Abuse

Crimes of Occasion, Desperation, and Predation Against America's Elders

The study is a follow-up of MetLife's 2009 "Broken Trust: Elders, Family, and Finances" and examines the prevalence and impact of elder financial abuse in America today. It demonstrates how these crimes continue to decimate incomes, impact the health and well-being of its victims, and fracture families. Yet it still is underreported, under-recognized, and under-prosecuted.

Key Findings:

• Instances of fraud perpetrated by strangers comprised 51% of articles related to elder financial abuse, followed by family, friends, and neighbors (34%), the business sector (12%), and Medicare and Medicaid fraud (4%).
• Medicare and Medicaid fraud resulted in the highest average loss per case in that category.
• Women were twice as likely as men to be victims of elder financial abuse, with most being between the ages of 80 and 89, living alone, and requiring some level of help with either health care or home maintenance.
• Nearly 60% of perpetrators were men, mostly between the ages of 30 and 59.
• Dollar losses over the holidays due to family, friends, and neighbor perpetrators were overall higher than any other category due to number of instances, although the highest average dollar loss per individual was from business perpetrators.

Methodology:

Data on elder financial abuse were obtained by examining articles from the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) newsfeed gathered from April through June 2010 to compare it with the data in the 2009 MetLife Broken Trust Study. Data were also gathered between November 2010 and January 2011 to examine the impact of the holiday period on elder financial abuse. This newsfeed database tracks media reports of all types of elder abuse through Google and Yahoo alerts, which scanned billions of pages.

Source:http://www.metlife.com/mmi/research/elder-financial-abuse.html#methodology