Glossary
Employee dishonesty
Crime coverage for money, securities or other property lost through dishonest acts by your own employees, intended to harm you and benefit them.
Also called: employee theft, employee dishonesty coverage, employee fraud coverage, fidelity coverage
Employee dishonesty coverage, titled Employee Theft in the ISO crime forms, pays for loss of money, securities and other property caused by an employee's dishonest act. The standard wording requires that the employee acted with manifest intent to cause you a loss and to obtain a financial benefit for the employee or someone else, other than salary, bonuses and similar pay. Honest mistakes and carelessness do not qualify.
Several details decide claims. Look at who counts as an "employee" (temporary and leased workers, volunteers), whether the limit applies per loss or per employee, and how loss is proven. The form does not accept an inventory or profit-and-loss computation as the sole proof, so you need records. Coverage also ends for any employee the moment you discover a dishonest act by that person. Theft of a customer's property by your staff, as with a cleaning company working in client homes, needs a separate client property endorsement.
Scale makes this worth a look. The ACFE's 2026 occupational fraud study, covering 2,402 cases, found a median loss of $104,000 per case.
employee theft coverage and fidelity bonds: what they cover and who needs one explains the options, commercial crime insurance: what it covers and what it excludes covers the full crime form, and fidelity bond defines the bond alternative.
Last reviewed October 10, 2026