I’ve never subscribed to the simplistic idea that people commit insurance fraud just to “get back” at their insurer for charging high premiums, denying an earlier claim, or some other unpopular decision.

People make moral choices for many reasons. Peer pressure, economic downturns, ease of committing the scam, and low chances of getting caught are some of the many reasons people bilk insurers.

Often we make an unethical choice and then find an intellectual reason to justify our actions, psychologists say. Our inner voice might say, “Well, I’m a good person but I inflated that burglary claim because my premiums are too high.” Or, “Everybody does it, so why not me?”

Whatever people’s diverse motives, their attitudes toward insurance fraud and insurers are growing worse. Each problem feeds the other, so both must be addressed forcefully. Left to fester, they could create a snowball effect that will be costly for both insurers and society.

More people tolerate insurance fraud today than 10 years ago, reveals the coalition’s recent national study of consumer attitudes.

Insurance fraud also can be acceptable if the dollar amount isn’t too high, nobody is hurt or the scheme itself is widespread, the coalition’s study also shows.

And fewer than one of four people think highly of insurers. Positive attitudes toward the insurance industry overall have dropped from 53 percent in 1997 to 37 percent today.

Toyota’s ill-advised TV commercials during the last holiday season reflected–and reinforced—many of those backsliding public attitudes. The widely viewed spots showed average Americans wrecking their cars so they could collect insurance money to buy a new Toyota. The ads treated fraud as a parlor game that’s fun for the whole family. The ads were successful, in part, because insurance is one business Americans love to trash.

With fraud being normalized as part of America’s popular culture, small wonder people find it increasingly easy to dredge up convenient rationales for bilking insurers.

Further fueling the moral climate, insurers often are targets of public ire simply because they have such power over people’s lives.

Deservedly or not, insurer credibility took a hit over controversies about the handling of Katrina claims. Withdrawals from territories, unreasonably high premiums, unfair claim denials and other actions inflame consumers as well. And the bid-rigging scandals may have tarnished all insurers, even though only a few were involved.

Larger moral fissures also are opening up in society. Enron-style corporate scandals, for example, may have eroded people’s trust in all corporations.

Insurers thus have little margin of error in this incendiary environment. But who says life is fair? So what are insurers doing about it? Not nearly enough.

At one time, property-casualty insurers worked harder to teach Americans about the value insurance brings to society. Insurers showed consumers how the insurance industry has make America safer by creating Underwriters Laboratories, promoting airbags and seatbelts, and funding training for firefighters.

Insurers of all lines have a credible story to tell. Life in America would be harder for nearly everyone without insurance protection.

Why aren’t insurers more aggressively telling this story? Why aren’t insurers trying harder to convince Americans that fraud is a corrosive crime?

Taking action will be expensive. But the cost of inaction is unthinkable.