 By Linden Holliday, CEO of MyDrive Solutions
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) estimates that undetected general insurance claims fraud totals £1.9bn a year, with £350m of this attributable to the motor insurance sector*.Linden Holliday, CEO of MyDrive Solutions believes that there is no need for such vast expense and loss to continue, as fraud can be so readily mitigatedagainst with the collection and resultant analysis of greater, more detailed driving behavioural data.
Improved insurance telematics, where data on a driver’s behaviour is recorded on a second by second basis – a vast improvement on the current 30 second sampling – allows insurers to identify many more discrete behaviours and therefore assess with far greater accuracy whether the facts presented to them are accurate or not, and therefore where the fault actually lies. For example, was the driver exceeding the specific road’s speed limit? Did the incident occur where it is claimed it did? Was there sufficient braking? Was the driving behaviour of the entire journey uncharacteristic compared to recent history, suggesting either a different driver, or an impairment such as intoxication? By analysing the deeper data, insurers can immediately discredit claims that simply do not stack up.
Fraudulent motor insurance claims are frequently made, but are often missed and therefore wrongly compensated. And the figures above only reflect the fraudulent claims that are known about, so the truth of the situation is probably far more serious. Insurers would therefore be well advised to gather as much data on their customers’ driving behaviours as is available – without this, the industry is destined to suffer many more fraudulent claims and expensive losses.
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