Pilot unlikely to be rolled out as insurer explores other techniques
Allianz Cornhill is set to become the next insurance company to reject voice stress analysis as a means of tackling insurance fraud.
The insurer has completed a pilot using voice stress analysis software, commonly referred to as lie detectors, but said it did not expect the pilot to be rolled out.
Claims director Jonathan Dye said: "We ran a trial on voice stress analysis. We are crunching the numbers now, but are unlikely to continue using it."
Dye said that cognitive interviewing techniques, also known as conversation management, were likely to be used more widely across the business.
"We have run a pilot with conversation management. It has legs and we can do it in-house," he said.
Dye added that the insurer was looking at other methods of tackling fraud, including the use of modelling techniques to highlight potential fraudsters.
"We are looking at work that our American colleagues have done on prediction modelling from data mining. For example, mining data from the system to predict where we can get recoveries from third parties which may otherwise have been missed."
He added: "We could do similar things for fraud. It could help us to be more targeted."
If Allianz Cornhill does not adopt voice stress analysis technology, it would be the seventh of 21 companies to reject it.
In August, Royal & SunAlliance confirmed that it would not continue to use the software following a pilot, saying it was not cost-effective compared to other techniques.
However, a number of other insurers, including Highway, are continuing to use voice stress software.
Allianz Cornhill banks on medical experts
Allianz Cornhill is employing medically trained case managers in a bid to speed up settlements in higher value personal injury claims.
The company's claims director Jon Dye said the first case manager had been employed.
"The case managers will look at the injuries and manage them in a more proactive fashion with claimant lawyers to take some of the adversarial sting out of the process," he said.
