The blog is by Ben Fletcher, Director, Insurance Fraud Bureau for our Fraud Conference
taking place on 27 September 2018.
In order to build an effective fraud strategy, an integral part of the process is to identify potential risks and then decide, which of those risks you wish to accept and which you wish to try to mitigate with some form of control.
There are some pretty big ticket items that are on people’s minds at the moment. These factors can be broadly grouped into the following three categories; technology, regulation and customer expectation.
Technology
You don’t have to look too far, to be reminded that we are living in an increasingly digitised era. Most organisations are involved in some kind of digital transformation programme. These can provide exciting opportunities as there is lots of new technology out there that can be utilised, however the flip side is that decisions on claims for example need to be made quicker now than ever before and the luxury of time that investigators often seek, is diminishing.
Regulation
We are all used to regulatory change, however with the ink barely dry on GDPR and the Data Protection Bill, we are all thinking about what impact the PI reforms will have. We know that the reforms will help reduce the type of fraud that we see in the motor PI market today. What is slightly harder to predict is what will the fraudsters do, where will they go and what will their next move look like?
Customer expectation
Our organisations are all striving to create additional value and a great experience for our customers. As such our fraud controls have to avoid being too intrusive or disruptive to the genuine customer’s journey. Not only do we know that our businesses will expect nothing less, we also know that if we don’t do a good enough job managing the customer experience, then the potential reputational risk is greater now than ever before in terms of getting it wrong.
There are of course some things we can have reasonable certainty in;
- Fraud is not a problem that can be solved. Yes it will continue to change and evolve, however when you look at the early frauds dating back to abuse of shipping contracts from hundreds of years ago, we can assume that fraudsters will simply not stop.
- Fraudsters are far better at sharing data and know-how, than we as an industry are. They are not concerned by the nuances of data protection or competition law!
So back to where we started, how do we build fraud strategies for the future? Whilst there is no ‘silver bullet’, there are two keys things that are essential for tomorrow’s fraud strategy;
Flexibility – Any controls and solutions we build have to be flexible. Fraudsters can change overnight and we are never going to catch up, let alone win, unless we can be suitably agile.
Data – Our single most powerful tool in the fight against fraud lies within data. Our ability to accurately and compliantly record, process, analyse and share data is absolutely key. Fraudsters want to hide in the shadows of poor quality data and an industry that is afraid to talk to one another. Sharing data makes it much harder for fraudsters to hide and ply their trade.
There will always be elements of strategies that organisations will see a value in keeping to themselves, which is absolutely right in a competitive market. However we have a collective need to continue to evolve our data sharing strategy to really take the fight to the fraudster in a manner that we are all comfortable with.
Book here to attend our Fraud conference on 27 September 2018.