Fraudsters hiding low-value ‘stolen’ cars in lock-ups

With fraud on the rise in the UK as the recession bites, esure car insurance is tackling fabricated low-value car theft claims head-on by stepping up its use of sophisticated cognitive interviewing techniques from 8th June 2009.

‘Stolen' car claims for vehicles worth less than £5,000 are often lodged when the cars are fraudulently hidden in lock-ups rather than stolen, according to the insurer. From 8th June, esure's claims validation team will use cognitive interviewing on all reported ‘stolen unrecovered' low-value car claims in an attempt to stamp out any surge in such claims.

Cognitive interviewing is a specialist technique designed to reveal tell-tale inaccuracies and inconsistencies in fabricated stories. esure uses it as a front-line counter fraud technique which is then combined with Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) where appropriate. VRA is a technology that identifies micro changes in the voice that can occur when a speaker is showing higher levels of stress while giving a statement or answering a question.

Low-value cars have been targeted less-and-less by professional thieves in recent years because of the rise of immobiliser technologies and the expense associated with overcoming modern security systems. Low-value stolen cars are almost never stolen to order and, instead, tend to turn up dumped or burned out after joy-rides or use in other crimes. Consequently, any claim that doesn't fit this profile is a red flag to esure claims specialists and will now result in the use of cognitive interviewing during the claim investigation.

Gordon Hannah, Director of Claims and Operations at esure explains: "The massive leaps in car security and immobiliser technology have made it very hard to steal any car without expensive specialist equipment. This has helped to dramatically reduce the targeted theft of all but high value cars.

"The knock-on effect of these improvements is that many stolen low-value cars tend to be joy-ridden, burnt out or simply dumped rather than going into the stolen car market."

He added: "As a consequence, we have to be extremely vigilant when investigating unrecovered cars that don't fit the modern stolen car profile. We have found cognitive interviewing to be an effective way of spotting and clamping down on attempted fraud. A skilled interviewer can easily spot flaws and inconsistencies in cover stories that enable us to investigate more effectively."