Car insurance fraudsters targeted with new methods

Thursday, 04 June 2009 01:13

Fraudsters may be out-witted by a new cognitive interviewing technique by insurer esure.

In a bid to clamp down on 'lock up fraud', esure is tackling "fabricated low-value car theft claims head-on by stepping up its use of sophisticated cognitive interviewing techniques".

The recession is expected to result in a rise in the number of fraudulent insurance claims.

Last year the Association of British Insurers (ABI) found 107,000 claims worth £730 million were false - and this is expected to rise in 2009.

Esure will be using new interview techniques from June 8th on 'stolen' car claims for vehicles worth less than £5,000.

The insurer's claim validation teams will use cognitive interviewing on all reported 'stolen unrecovered' low-value car claims, to prevent them from occurring.

Gordon Hannah, director of claims and operations at esure, said: "A skilled interviewer can easily spot flaws and inconsistencies in cover stories that enable us to investigate more effectively."

The firm is also using Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) to identify changes in the voice which occur when a speaker is showing higher levels of stress while giving a statement or answering a question.

"The massive leaps in car security and immobiliser technology have made it very hard to steal any car without expensive specialist equipment," Mr Hannah said.

"The knock-on effect of these improvements is that many stolen low-value cars tend to be joy-ridden, burnt out or simply dumped rather than going into the stolen car market."

"As a consequence, we have to be extremely vigilant when investigating unrecovered cars that don't fit the modern stolen car profile."

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