Ex-LV= employee arrested on suspicion of selling data to CMC

Three people have been arrested across Bournemouth and Poole following a police investigation into the suspected fraudulent sale of an insurer’s confidential information to a claims management company (CMC).

On Wednesday this week a former LV= employee was arrested at his home in the Poole area on suspicion of fraud by abuse of position. He was released on bail until September.

On Thursday a 22-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man, both CMC employees, were arrested a business premises in the Westbourne area on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering. They have since been bailed.

The arrests follow an investigation by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).

The department launched its investigation after LV= referred suspicions that, between January and December 2014, an employee had unlawfully passed information they held on 50 third party road traffic collision victims to a claims management company in exchange for payments totalling close to £17,000.

The victims reported being contacted by a person they believed worked for LV= and subsequently their claims for personal injuries, vehicle repairs and courtesy cars being dealt with by a claims management company.

They said they had received payouts from the claims management company for their claims. But IFED’s investigation found that the payouts were up to 40% lower than the amount LV= had paid out for each claim.

City of London Police detective constable Kate Sibley, who is leading the investigation, said: “Illegitimately selling or buying an insurer’s confidential customer information is a criminal offence.

“This operation should send a strong message to anyone thinking of committing this type of fraud – insurers are working with the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department to root you out and you will feel the full force of the law.”

LV= claims director Martin Milliner said: “We work closely with the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department and as soon as we suspected one of our employees was liaising inappropriately with a claims management company we referred the matter to IFED. Protecting our customers’ data is of paramount importance and we have systems in place to monitor this.”