Winning the Fight against Financial Crime

20th August 2015

Covéa Insurance’s Financial Crime Unit has been shortlisted for two insurance industry awards, recognising the progress made in preventing financial crime and fighting insurance fraud. The team has been shortlisted for both the Fraud Investigation Team of the Year Award – Insurer and the Counter Fraud Initiative of the Year – Personal Lines.

The team has been recognised for creating an in-house telephone investigation team for home claims and introducing real-time fraud analytics at first notification of loss; this enables quicker decisions and avoids delays in the settlement of genuine claims. A combination of robust application screening, training and technology has helped to drive down the volume of suspicious claims, without a detrimental impact on honest customers.

Led by former Lancashire police officer Steve Jackson, Covéa Insurance’s Financial Crime Unit is active in a number of industry initiatives aimed at combatting insurance fraud. The company is one of only two insurers to be represented on the HM Treasury led Insurance Fraud Taskforce where Steve is a member of the Personal Injury Working Group whose remit is to provide advice about how the industry’s personal injury claims ‘fraud defence’ processes can be improved to stop financial crime.

Covéa Insurance also recently joined the Insurance Fraud Register (IFR) and works closely with the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Division (IFED) of the Metropolitan Police to bring fraudsters to justice and is a member of EURAPCO which handles cross-border claims and insurance fraud.

Steve Jackson commented:

"Fraudsters will always come up with new ways to cheat the system, so we have to be creative and progressive in looking at ways to counter this. I am delighted that this forward-thinking approach has led to the development of new initiatives, earning us a place on the Insurance Fraud Awards shortlist, as well as preventing fraud and enabling us to bring criminal prosecutions against fraudsters. However, there is still a long way to go in addressing the problem of fraud; in particular the huge number of fraudulent personal injury claims that are being fuelled by the hard sell tactics of some claims management companies. Our efforts to address this issue are ongoing and we are working with Government and industry bodies to find ways to prevent this."

 

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About Covéa Insurance

Covéa Insurance Plc is the UK underwriting business of leading French mutual insurance group Covéa (which includes the global reinsurer PartnerRe since July 2022). 

Covéa Insurance looks after the insurance needs of UK customers, across a range of product lines; delivering financial reassurance through its Standard & Poor’s ‘AA- stable’ rating, as a guaranteed subsidiary of Covéa.  

Covéa Insurance has a strong people and service ethos and holds ServiceMark accreditation with Distinction for its Personal Lines operation and its Commercial & HNW Claims teams, as well as Chartered Insurer status for its Commercial business. Covéa Insurance is signatory to the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter and the insurance Inclusivity Pledge and has been named one of the top 75 employers in West Yorkshire & the Humber. In 2022 Covéa Insurance was named Insurer of the Year at the British Claims Awards and Personal Lines Insurer of the Year at the Insurance Times Awards.

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