Fraud charter: Insurance staff 'targeted by data-theft criminals'

Fraudsters are trying to lure insurance staff into criminal activity by offering vast sums of money in return for client data, an Insurance Times Fraud Charter meeting heard yesterday in Westminster.

Admiral fraud operations manager Susan Evans said its staff had been targeted in what is becoming an industry-wide problem.

The fraudsters could use the data for a variety of crimes such as identity theft, pursuing fraudulent insurance claims or selling the data for a high price to their criminal brethren.

Evans added: “The selling of data alone is something I think the industry is failing to keep a handle on.

“In the past three months we have had about four instances where approaches have been made directly to staff, asking for Admiral data to be released to them – and those are the ones we know about.

“How on earth do we find out about the ones we don’t know about? The worrying thing is the unknown unknowns.”

The delegates also called for tougher regulation of doctors and solicitors involved in the accident and claims procedure.

The question asked was to what extent ‘professional enablers’ in these professions were deliberately involved in fraud and what was being done to tackle the issue.

Hastings Direct head of counter fraud Paul Priestley said: “Regulation is not joined up. Unless there is an independent panel of experts it is going to be the same accident management companies that will go to the same medical doctor. Someone needs to be looking at their credentials.”

Several cases were highlighted, including one in which a medical doctor was known to have been a co-director of an accident management company, while in another, a series of medical reports by a doctor showed him to be in two parts of the country at the same time.

Carpenters law firm partner Donna Scully said: “There are clearly solicitors who are turning a blind eye and it is tarnishing the reputation of the good ones. It is frustrating that more cannot be done.”

The future regulation of private investigators which is likely to come into force next year autumn was wholly welcomed, but was criticised for its ‘vaguery’ on where the lines would be drawn.