This article from Forbes is really old, but contains new ideas.

...the big problem today for large insurance companies is Russian businessmen who buy $5 million to $10 million insurance policies, go to Russia on business and fake their own deaths by a Russian mob hit. Perpetrators of these big-ticket frauds go to the trouble of finding real corpses to use in the scam.

I once bought a book about how to fake one's death, and they never suggested procuring an actual corpse. I think that touch would make the plan flawless.