Fraud exposes your business to financial, regulatory, and reputational harm. It also pushes up premiums. But at QBE, we’re pushing back. No business is immune from fraud.
That’s where QBE’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) comes in. It combines the full range of expertise required to combat fraud effectively and drive down costs for our customers and for QBE.
Since setting up the SIU in 2010, we’ve identified 70,000 instances of potential fraud and successfully challenged 22,000 fraudulent claims. We’ve also helped our customers protect themselves from the many challenges fraud can cause by sharing intelligence and promoting awareness. To achieve this level of performance, we invest strongly in our SIU team, giving them the resources they need to deliver advanced data washing and analytics, sophisticated fraud detection and case management, statistical analysis and benchmarking, and best practice across all aspects of special investigations.
The SIU acts as a central hub for fraud intelligence data within QBE, and directly coordinates the handling of all serious or organised fraud claims. It works with claims teams across all QBE lines of business within Europe and internationally – and with external agencies such as the Insurance Fraud Bureau, the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, the Insurance Fraud Investigators Group, and the National Crime Agency.
Homing in on fraud
To help us identify potential instances of fraud, we have significantly invested in our technological offering. QBE’s fraud tool, Shift, uses AI capability to enable the specialist team to do what they do best – tackling illicit activities. By investing in Shift, we can continue to improve our services to your business and protect your interests, challenging the fraudulent claims and eradicating risk to the processing of genuine claims.
The benefits of the system include:
- A combination of cutting-edge technology and AI to identify more fraud whilst reducing false positives – this means we can settle the right claims as quickly as possible
- Enhanced intelligence from multiple business lines and jurisdictions – this gives us insight into professional enabler and expert fraud
- Ability to identify document doctoring/falsifying, which is becoming more commonplace
- Real-time detection – we can detect the fraudulent claims immediately
- Ability to detect social network links between parties, assisting in the detection of fraud rings
Spotting the trends
Standing back from the data to see the big picture, we analyse and benchmark against broader trends to produce sophisticated management information that helps identify emerging threats in the fraud arena. This supports other teams across QBE in defining underwriting criteria and making better informed decisions on risk selection. The freer we can keep our portfolio from fraud, the lower the premiums we can quote you. It is crucial that we understand the behaviour of fraudulent individuals and companies so that we can adapt our strategies and keep your business safe.
Taking fraud in hand
Wherever we’ve identified potential fraud, we refer it for active case management by one of our specialist fraud claims adjusters. With a variety of backgrounds in insurance, the law, and police work, our expert adjusters have all the skills they need to tackle insurance fraud effectively. On selected cases, they can also call on the highly specialised expertise of our handpicked partners in legal practice and investigations.
Protecting your brand
We prioritise identifying fraudulent activity and acting on it at the earliest possible opportunity. If your business is affected, we’ll consult fully and frankly with you, taking all possible steps to avoid damage to your reputation or brand. We will work with you on the desired strategy and to identify the optimal outcome for your company.
Fighting fraud nationwide
QBE is a committed player in the national effort to combat serious and organised fraud. We’re a member of the General Insurance Fraud Committee and have data sharing agreements in place with third parties, including partner legal specialists and investigators. We collaborate actively with the Insurance Fraud Bureau (and its Insurance Fraud Intelligence Hub), the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, the Insurance Fraud Register, and the Association of British Insurers.
Together with partners like these, we’re turning back the tide of fraud that’s pushed premiums up for so long.
Our team has an excellent track record of success - you may have seen them in action on BBC’s ‘Claimed and Shamed’, which sees insurance fraudsters caught out on camera.