Fraudscreen combats insurance fraud with GeoPlus

by Gill Montia

Story link: Fraudscreen combats insurance fraud with GeoPlus

Fraudscreen has launched GeoPlus, a new risk assessment model for insurers and brokers.

The company, which specialises in software that predicts payment intent, says the new offering has the potential to reduce fraudulent claims and bad debt across the insurance industry.

Designed to work with existing risk rating and pricing models, such as Emblem, GeoPlus classifies the whole of the UK into one of 15 distinct segments.

From there it can identify potential opportunistic fraudulent behaviour amongst new, existing and lapsed policyholders, plus third parties, at a postcode or postal sector level.

Fraudscreen sales director, John Sharman, says: “Our work in this sector has proven that the worst GeoPlus segments are 30% more likely to make a claim and when they do it will be 45% above the average claim value.”

The firm points out that insurance fraud is often opportunistic in its nature, and tends to manifest itself in several ways including: increased and above average frequency of claim applications; over-inflated and above average claims value and the cancellation of or default on payment instalments.

With the majority of insurers now generating new business through price comparison/aggregator sites, GeoPlus can screen applicants quickly, allowing insurers can reduce their loss ratios by improving their upfront risk and assessment at point of application.

Insurance fraud has been on the rise in the recession and in a survey of 3,000 adults carried out last year for the Association of British Insurers, one in five people admitted that they would not rule out making a fraudulent claim in the future.