The Embezzler Profiled: She’s A Long-Term Employee

Hiscox USA, a specialty insurance company, has issued a study of employee theft, specifically embezzlement, in the United States. Using a data base consisting of cases that were active in federal courts in calendar year 2014, it found that 60 percent of perpetrators were female and the median age was 50. However, while women were found to have orchestrated the majority of embezzlements, their actions resulted in a median loss nearly 30 percent less than those of their male counterparts. The smallest firms were most likely to suffer embezzlements – four out of five occurred at organizations with fewer than 100 employees. The industry category with the highest percentage of thefts was financial services, but the largest median losses were in retail entities and the healthcare industry.