When it comes to cases of fraud, companies in the insurance business are used to dealing with vehicle owners and their accident claims. But a new trend is surfacing: fake travel insurance claims.
With more people consumed by wanderlust and becoming rather savvy about international travel, buying insurance to protect yourself is the natural next step after booking your flight.
As reported by The Straits Times, besides personal accident and health, travel insurance made up about 21.6 percent of the industry’s business in 2015 — higher than years before, but still losing out to motoring coverage.
In lieu of this, the General Insurance Association established a workgroup last year to deal with the emerging problem of travel insurance fraud. According to its president, A.K. Cher, now they are seeing people “travelling at the expense of insurance companies.”
Just like that incident last year where three friends claimed to be burglared while staying at an island resort — yet when examined, it was discovered that they all bought travel insurance from eight companies in Singapore.
So the GIA is turning to data analytics to nip this problem in the bud by checking for anomalies and cases where certain types of claims have been overcompensated. Insurers have also began engaging the services of investigators from the Commercial Affairs Department to hunt down fraudsters.
