Anti-fraud hotline to be relaunched after R&SA takes control from the ABI
The insurance industry's fraud hotline, Cheatline, is to be relaunched with increased publicity in an effort to maximise the anti-fraud initiative.
Insurers have taken the running of the freephone line in-house on a six-month rolling basis with Royal & SunAlliance (R&SA) the first insurer to house the service. The ABI previously handled it.
R&SA head of counter fraud John Beadle said: "We decided to take control of Cheatline ourselves as the ABI is a strategic rather than an operational organisation.
"The line needs to sit somewhere centrally with links into insurers and the police."
The ABI fraud committee is reported to be looking at a number of options to find a permanent home for Cheatline, including Polaris.
Beadle said: "We don't think we will outsource the operation outside the insurance industry."
When Cheatline was launched at the end of 1998 it was registering around
20 calls per day however a lack of publicity has meant this has fallen off to around two calls, way below the potential for the scheme.
The ABI fraud committee is looking to boost calls by initiatives such as incorporating the freephone number into leaflets or policy documents.
R&SA drops Digilog lie detection pilot
Royal & SunAlliance has decided not continue its Digilog lie detection pilot. The insurer said its results showed that although the system worked in detecting fraud it did not improve on its existing claims experience.
R&SA head of counter fraud John Beadle said: "As a result of the pilot we can confirm that the technology does work in identifying high risk potential fraud cases. But against our existing fraud detection techniques Digilog did not improve on our claims results so we will not be proceeding with it."
