The Claims Investigation Unit has dealt with more than 4,200 cases over the last 12 months

The Validus Claims Investigation Unit (CIU) has saved more than £6m through identifying and challenging fraudulent claims over the last 12 months.

The unit has been referred more than 4,200 cases over that period for claims relating to motor hire, recovery and storage, with an average of £9,000 saved for every claim investigated.

Mark Murphy, who leads the CIU, said that intelligence sharing was the reason behind the growing success of the unit in tracking down insurance fraud.

“It is absolutely vital that that our industry shares their data to beat sophisticated fraudsters and criminals,” he said. “Many of our successes have come from our ability to cross check claims information provided by different insurers and spot overlapping/simultaneous claimed hire periods.”

Once a claim is identified as fraudulent, Validus then feeds the extra information into its early risk notification system, which helps spot high risk claims for investigation.

“This provides our clients with a safety net, as we have the ability to pro-actively amend the risk status of any given new claim,or claimant entity, immediately if new intelligence is identified, rather than several months into the process when the claim may have already have been settled,” Murphy said.

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