A fraudster has for the first time served a jail sentence for wrongful receipt of insurance payments under the NSW compulsory third party scheme.

Sunny Arora, who admitted one count of fraud, was sentenced to a 16-month term with a non-parole period of five months. He was released on parole earlier this month.

State Insurance Regulatory Authority CEO Mandy Young says fraud costs NSW millions of dollars each year and places an unfair burden on those who do the right thing.

“Insurance fraud is a serious form of dishonesty in a system that was built to protect the people in NSW,” she said.

“The public can expect to see a significant increase in regulatory actions including prosecutions, penalty notices and recoveries for fraud.”

Mr Arora provided Suncorp brand GIO with a dozen counterfeit documents, including payslips and a Tax Office payment summary, and falsely claimed he lost income due to a car crash injury. The court ordered $12,787 be reimbursed to GIO and $5896 paid to SIRA.

His partner Shania Vikash, a passenger in the same crash, was found guilty of defrauding the scheme and sentenced to a 12-month community correction order that started last month.

She did not lose earnings because of the crash but fabricated payslips and made false declarations in certificates of fitness to obtain weekly payments.

She was ordered to pay back $37,246 to GIO for weekly benefits received between November 2023 and July 2024, plus $6747 to SIRA.

SIRA says a prison sentence under the CTP scheme serves as a deterrent. It says it is ramping up its ability to detect and respond to scams, and an online reporting form allows people to anonymously “dob in a potential fraudster faster than ever before”.

Last year, Issa Abid was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for defrauding the NSW CTP scheme of more than $135,000, but this was served in the community via an intensive correction order.

Earlier this year, Moeed Ghauree was given a 12-month community correction order after he worked as a security guard while claiming CTP payments from QBE.

And Anita Kaura was found guilty of 10 fraud-related offences in December after scamming more than $428,000 from the NSW workers’ compensation scheme.