Bogus insurance claims caught by data sifting

Insurer MMA is catching fraudulent claims and cutting its costs by analysing its claims data more effectively.

The insurer is using Advance - a combination of fraud evaluation software from CSC and data sources from Conversant Data - to check claims information to expose potential fraud attempts against its home and motor insurance policies.

Bob Still, claims director at MMA, told silicon.com: "There's still a place for the investigative person getting to grips with the case but we need data sifting to direct them to the cases that aren't genuine."

He added: "We were as good as anyone else at dealing with fraudulent claims but this gives us a quantum leap forward in a very short time."

Claims are screened according to business rules developed by CSC - for example claims made soon after the policy is taken out may get extra scrutiny. Whiplash is harder to prove than a broken leg - and thus has more potential for fraud - so may also get extra scrutiny.

The service also searches for common phone numbers and vehicle details which could be a sign of repeat claims.

Still said: "The smart way to do it is to sift the data and check it against norms and rules. It's helping us pick up cases which would probably have got through before. People that are doing staged accidents which is where the big money is."

As a hosted system there is also much less impact on MMA's IT systems.

Still explained: "Our core business is insurance and a company like MMA couldn't bring the economies of scale needed to a job like that."

The service has helped cut the cost of investigations - CSC claims the service has saved the insurer five times more than the service costs.