Many insurance companies today are fighting a battle against fraudulent claims for insurance. Almost every insurance company gets fraudulent claims sent into them. This is where the insurance claim investigator comes in and has to assess whether the claim is actually an honest legitimate claim or a fraudulent claim. Many insurance companies will have their own team of investigators in house dealing with all the claims that are possibly fraudulent, but there are also many companies that employ private investigation teams to carry out this type of work.
Sometimes it can be very clear to the insurance company that a claim that has been presented is actually fraudulent but there is no hard evidence of this and the claim can be very difficult to assess. Hard evidence of deception or lies has to be available for the company to actually reject a claim as fraudulent and refuse to pay out the claim. It can sometimes be a time consuming operation to gather all this evidence together and present it. Private investigators will then be bought in to help and be able to stand witness if needed.
Many of the investigators from private companies have a thorough knowledge and background in the security areas, such as ex-policemen and women people who have previously worked in intelligence. This gives them the experience and knowledge to work in a correct and discreet manner to uncover the claim investigation with evidence. By using a mixture of surveillance and intelligence work the true circumstances surrounding the claim can be uncovered.
There are many different types of insurance claim investigator, there is insurance claims for accidental damage to vehicle, insurance claims for household insurance, fire insurance and insurance for sickness. Whatever the type of claim insurance claim investigators will engage in the job of uncovering the truth about the claim and decide if the claim is in fact fraudulent by presenting evidence to the contrary.
Many people are aware that these fraudulent claims for insurance in many fields’ only leads to the insurance company losing money and then the insurance premiums have to be increased for everyone else who carries insurance for whatever reason. The cost per year of fraudulent claims to insurance companies is increased year on year so the need for insurance claim investigators is a must for most of the companies offering insurance cover. At a cost of around £4 million a day fraudulent claims to insurance companies have to be uncovered.
To the majority of people insurance is something that has to be taken out for their car and home or sickness and accident and mortgage cover; the majority do not need to claim. Unfortunately there is now a culture of people taking insurance cover out and blatantly making false claims. Insurance claims investigators have a difficult job to do to try and weed out the false claims, but with all the sophisticated surveillance equipment and the experience of the investigators many of the insurance claims are refused pay-out on the grounds of a fraudulent claim. The fact that many of the insurance claims investigators have a military to police background helps to get the best out of people being interviewed about the insurance claim and can soon gather evidence that the claim has been fraudulently made. If people did not make these inflated fraudulent claims to insurance companies’ everyday then the premiums for everyone would be much lower and affordable for all. It is an increasing problem for insurance companies and unfortunately has to be factored in to the price of all insurance premiums, not only the cost of the actual fraudulent claims, but also the cost of employing the insurance claims investigators.
