Insurance Fraud Bureau signs ‘landmark partnership’ with Shift Technology to build fraud detection system for UK insurance industry

The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) has today announced a partnership with Shift Technology to build a powerful, new fraud detection system on behalf of the UK insurance sector.

Currently one insurance scam takes place each minute in the UK, devastating countless victims and costing the economy over £3 billion a year.

With insurance services becoming faster and increasingly digitised, so too are the tactics of fraudsters. To ensure the IFB remains cutting-edge in the fight against organised insurance fraud, it has partnered with Shift Technology to build a solution using AI. The new platform, which will be delivered in early 2022, will see the AI ‘learn and grow’ as it adapts to the evolving threat of organised insurance fraud networks, with the capability to alert fraud investigators to suspicious activity in real-time.

Ben Fletcher, Director of the IFB, said:

“Our world is becoming increasingly automated and criminals are quickly adapting the way they carry out insurance scams. In the fast-changing world of fraud, we must do more to protect businesses and the public from its devastating impact. Our partnership with Shift Technology will support these ambitions by enabling our counter-fraud services to evolve and become even more intuitive and efficient”.

The IFB is a not-for-profit organisation at the heart of the UK’s fight against insurance fraud. Each year, it takes on over 100 new investigations into complex fraud networks to bring criminals to justice and circulates thousands of intelligence alerts to the insurance industry.

As fraudsters move away from traditional insurance scams to more complex schemes linked to cyber-crime and identity theft, technological innovations have never been more vital. Sadly, the economic impact of Covid-19 could also inspire new waves and variants of fraudulent activity.

With challenges to the fraud landscape rapidly evolving, Shift’s SaaS-based, adaptive AI platform is the next step and will enhance the industry’s fight against organised insurance fraud.

Jeremy Jawish, CEO of Shift Technology welcomed the ‘landmark partnership’ with the IFB:

“The IFB is an iconic institution and an amazing reputation for helping the UK insurance industry mitigate the impact of fraud, benefitting both insurers and policyholders alike. Shift is honoured to now be an integral part of those efforts.”

Delivering AI-powered fraud detection and claims automation solutions to insurers around the globe, Shift Technology has a proven track record in delivering industry scale counter-fraud platforms for insurance consortia in Canada, France, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Working alongside more than 100 insurers worldwide to deliver fraud detection solutions, the Shift team brings a wealth of global experience to the IFB project. For the IFB partnership, Shift will analyse millions of policies and claims records from industry databases to help expose organised insurance fraud networks.

Jeremy Jawish continued: “We will work side-by-side with the IFB and its members over the coming months to build a fraud detection solution which not only uncovers cross-industry fraud today but continues to evolve to the ever-changing fraud landscape in years to come. That’s the beauty of AI - we have a living, breathing machine which thinks and adapts to the changing world around it.”

Insurance service providers interested in partnering with the IFB to help fight fraud can find out more on their membership page.

For more information about Shift Technology’s AI-powered insurance suite, visit www.shift-technology.com.

Industry commentary

Karl Helgesen, Chair of the IFB and Chief Claims Officer (UK & International) at RSA, said:

“The IFB’s partnership with Shift Technology marks a significant milestone in our industry’s evolution of counter-fraud activity. Organised crime groups continue to evolve their methods and cheat the system, which ultimately picks the pockets of innocent policyholders who pay the bill. By developing a new, agile fraud detection solution, the IFB can continue to disrupt organised crime, and secure convictions and sanctions against fraudsters.”

Clare Lunn, Chair of the General Insurance Fraud Committee (GIFC) and Financial Crime Director at LV=, said:

“The IFB has always been at the heart of the industry’s fight against organised insurance fraud. With such significant challenges on the horizon the IFB’s partnership with Shift Technology will help the industry to keep pace with change and find new variants of fraud as they emerge.