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SAICB ‘YEAR IN REVIEW’
MEDIA RELEASE
THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSURANCE CRIME BUREAU (SAICB)
4 NOVEMBER 2009
SAICB ‘YEAR IN REVIEW’ BREAKFAST CELEBRATES A SUCCESSFUL AND CHALLENGING FIRST YEAR
(Figure 1: Speakers at the SAICB's "Year in Review" Breakfast. From L-R: Ronnie Napier (Chairman of the SAIA Board), Hugo van Zyl (COO of the SAICB), Servaas du Plessis (Chairman of the SAICB Board) and Dr Graham Wright (CEO of BACSA))
The South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) held its “Year in Review” breakfast at the Johannesburg Country Club – Auckland Park, today. The SAICB was launched on 30 October 2008 and was established to address the ever escalating problem of insurance fraud and crime in the short term industry, and especially organized/syndicated insurance fraud.
The SAICB was the result of many years of investigation, research, debate and fact finding missions by the short-term insurance industry through the South African Insurance Associations’ (SAIA) Fraud Committee and Task Team. The SAICB currently has eleven member companies including Santam, Mutual & Federal, Hollard, Zurich, Lion of Africa, Regent, FRSTIA, Absa Insurance, Standard Insurance, Telesure and MiWay.
Mr Servaas du Plessis, Chair of the SAICB Board commented on the very difficult and successful first year of the SAICB. “We anticipated challenges and some teething problems, but our challenges and setbacks were way bigger than what we expected. The true potential and ability of an institution is however revealed in difficult times. We had to go back to the drawing board, revisit our initial strategy and we had to amend our original business plan with the lessons learnt,” he said.
“Through sheer determination of the SAICB staff, the support from management and the member companies, we can report today that the SAICB is established, functional and producing results. Although we still have a very long road ahead, the SAICB has made massive strides in indentifying fraudulent activities from opportunists, syndicates and service providers servicing clients in the short term industry,” he added.
SAICB and SAFPS enter into a partnership to share fraud data
The South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) and South African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS) announced in Johannesburg today, that they have entered into an agreement whereby both organisations will share confirmed fraud data on people who have defrauded any of their member organisations.
The SAFPS is a unique South African bred service which is committed to combating fraud in society and to offering the South African public a means whereby they can protect themselves against Impersonation and Identity Theft. SAFPS provides shared fraud data services to all South Africa’s major banks, many retailers, asset finance organisations and micro lenders.
The SAICB was formed in July 2008 to address organised fraud and crime in the short term insurance industry, and to identify repeat fraudulent offenders that target more than one insurance company. The SAICB currently has 11 member companies namely: Santam, Mutual & Federal, Hollard, Outsurance, Lion of Africa, Zurich, Standard Insurance, Absa Insurance, Regent, Telesure, and MiWay.
Website Launch
The fight against insurance fraud and crime gets a new weapon
The South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) has been in existence for just over six months, and has, in this time, already established itself as the go to organisation in the fight against insurance fraudand related crimes.
With the launch of its website on 1 March 2009, the SAICB will give the industry and public anotheravenue to address the fight against insurance fraud and crime. The website has been designedprimarily as an information site providing information on the SAICB, how it plans to address its veryimportant role of fighting insurance crime and fraud, but will also provide avenues to report suspectedfraud and crime as well as update the industry and public on successes and latest happenings.
“Since the launch of the SAICB in July 2008, the support and commitment we have received from our members and the industry has ensured that we will be a success,” said Hugo van Zyl, Head of Operations of the SAICB. “The sharing of information has already led to the indentifying of fraudulent behaviour by certain individuals, the presence of syndicates that are now under investigation, all leading to the industry saving money and preventing further fraud from taking place. A periodic update on our successes will appear on the website to encourage the public to report suspected insurance fraud and crime, and to update the public and industry on how the fight against crime is going,” he added.
Lies, scams and body snatchers
Faking it - it's big business these days.
Whether a burnt body, a nicked car, a stolen iPod, a king's ransom in jeweller or designer sunglasses, all are being eyed by the crafty.
The life insurance industry has prevented some 21 000 fraudulent insurance claims over the past five years, according to the Cape Town-based Life Offices Association (LOA), an umbrella body for life assurance companies.
Had these claims not been identified and prevented, losses would have amounted to R1,3-billion, according to chief executive Gerhard Joubert.
The short-term insurance industry, on the other hand, received more than R22-billion in claims in 2006 and industry insiders fear a significant portion constituted fake claims
So worried is the security industry about the rampant fraud that next week, it will launch the SA Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB).
The bureau, it is hoped, will breathe new life into the fight against this type of crime once it starts operating on November 1.
Recently, KwaZulu-Natal has seen increasingly inventive insurance fraud scams aimed at defrauding insurance companies out of millions of rands.
South African Insurance Crime Bureau: IDS vs SAICB
The Insurance Data System (IDS) is the system through which the short-term insurance industry shares information in order to obtain an integrated view of policy applications prior to taking on further risk as well as claims information to streamline claims processing. The IDS allows users to make a transactional enquiry to assess the risk of an individual, risk address and vehicle.
Although the IDS system is invaluable in assessing your risk, the system does not depict patterns and trends holistically from an industry point of view.
The South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) provides the next step in the process of fighting insurance crime, and specifically fraud. This next step involves using the IDS data (this is information that the industry already shares) and other data that participating companies and other entities might in future decide to share in the fight against crime, to look for organised crime patterns. These organised crime patterns will then be investigated with a view to address organised insurance fraud and related crimes at an industry level.
The SAICB will focus on mining existing information (starting with info shared in IDS) to fight organised insurance fraud at an industry level. The SAICB is a crime fighting organisation, and as such has no interest in providing information on a per transaction basis to its members with regards to anything other than organised crime patterns.
The function of providing information directly to insurers on a per transaction basis is clearly the function of the IDS.
South African Insurance Crime Bureau Launched
The Short-term insurance industry has taken a decisive stance in the fight against insurance fraud and crime.
The South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) was officially launched at a breakfast at the Johannesburg Country Club – Auckland Park, today. The SAICB has been established to address the ever escalating problem of insurance fraud and crime in the short term industry, and especially organized insurance fraud.
The SAICB was the result of many years of investigation, research, debate and fact finding missions by the short-term insurance industry through the South African Insurance Associations’ (SAIA) Fraud Committee and Task Team. The SAICB currently has eleven member companies including Santam, Mutual & Federal, Hollard, Zurich, Lion of Africa, Regent, OUTsurance, Absa Insurance, Standard Insurance, Telesure and MiWay.
Mr Servaas du Plessis, Chair of the SAICB Board, said in Johannesburg today that it took a lot of blood, sweat, begging and tears before the business plan was approved by the SAIA Board to start an Insurance Crime Bureau in South Africa.