Record success for UK anti-fraud efforts
Insurance law firm Horwich Farrelly, working on behalf of insurer Aviva, secured 10 successful findings of Fundamental Dishonesty in five days ─ a record-breaking result
The findings equate to nearly £100,000 saved for Aviva and its customers. Initially, the insurer raised concerns that a number of third-party claims were potentially suspicious, passing them on to Horwich Farrelly’s Intelligence Team for further analysis. Ten individuals were convicted; as well as the £96,000 saved in damages and costs, the results also allow for legal fees to be recouped directly from the claimants.
“We have always taken a very firm and robust approach to combating fraud in the insurance industry, and will investigate all claims thoroughly,” said Jared Mallinson, Fraud and Aviva client account Partner at the law firm. “We push for FD findings in the right circumstances, and these cases demonstrate the success of our approach, saving one insurer over £96,000 and allowing them to recover their legal fees.”
Horwich Farrelly and Aviva have been working together for 15 years to deal with fraudulent cases. One interesting observation noted by the law firm in this particular instance was that the run of cases came from a variety of different demographics and involved varied scenarios – Horwich Farrelly said that this shows there is really no such thing as a typical fraudster, validating its zero-tolerance approach.
“First and foremost, Aviva is here to pay claims,” said Richard Hiscocks, Aviva’s Casualty Claims Director, “which we do 96 per cent of the time. However, we also have a duty to our customers to ensure that we are not paying for fraudulent claims, which adds to the cost of insurance. Thanks to Aviva’s fraud detection capabilities, we saved our honest customers more than £80 million last year.
“Working in partnership with law enforcement agencies and law firms like Horwich Farrelly, we successfully prosecuted 58 instances of fraud last year, securing custodial sentences of over 68 years, and challenged hundreds of cases of which resulted in findings of fundamental dishonesty. Insurance fraud is a crime, and fraudsters are more likely than ever before to be caught, facing the very real prospect of serious financial penalties as well as custodial sentences.”
With insurance fraud shown to be on the rise, it seems that the uncompromising approach taken by Horwich Farrelly Aviva is the only way to go – we at ITIJ salute this result and hope that more partnerships such as this will spring up across the industry, so that one day perhaps we might finally be free of the scourge of fraud.