Insurers to get tough on crime Articles / TenderSystem Posted by webmaster on Jan 31, 2008 - 03:55 PM The insurance industry is looking to establish an insurance crime bureau, the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) has revealed in its latest newsletter. It said that the ICB would not replace existing investigative units in member companies but would only become involved when more than one company was involved, serial offenders were identified and the involvement of organised crime was identified. The investigative units of individual companies would remain in place to investigate member specific fraud and crime, it added. The services to be offered by the ICB to members include: Sending out alerts when patterns are identified within a specific company, for investigation by that company. Identifying patterns across companies, and the industry, and investigating these with the involvement of relevant member companies. Identifying, and communicating, modus operandi to members. Communicating with the authorities and other relevant role players in order to facilitate investigations across industry. Creating public awareness about insurance fraud and crime. Managing the industry fraudline. Hiring out its investigators to companies that do not have investigative units. The SAIA said the business case had been presented to the bigger role players in the industry through an ICB Road Show in January and several more members would be visited before the next SAIA Board meeting on 19 February 2008. "To date, the SAIA has received the verbal or written expression of intent to participate in the ICB from 6 members, including most of the major insurers. More members are expected to come on board before the SAIA Board meeting. "An MD Circular was sent to all member companies on 24 January 2008 to invite them to participate in this initiative. The concept will finally be presented to the SAIA Board on 19 February 2008," SAIA said. fin24 [1] This article is from ValueCard   http://www.valuecard.co.za/ The URL for this story is:   http://www.valuecard.co.za/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=67 Links in this article   [1] http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-25_2262276