One of the cars on sale at Valley Road Motors in Nairobi is being inspected on May 16, 2016. Insurance firms are losing a lot of money through vehicle fraud. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP
In Summary
Other cars crashed have vital parts removed supporting a lucrative second-hand car spare parts business
Some firms like Jubilee Insurance have since established a full-fledged forensic fraud investigations unit.
Insurance companies are losing billions of shillings every year in a well-coordinated scam involving false claims on high-end vehicles said to have been stolen or written off due to accidents.
The syndicate, which involves motor vehicle owners, assessors and insiders within the insurance companies, operates smoothly leaving no suspicion while minting millions in fraud schemes that have become a big headache to insurers.
Others thought to be involved include the police, garage owners and spare part dealers.
From fake accidents, dramatised robberies and car thefts as well as malicious crashing of high-end cars to claim write-offs, the cartel is giving underwriters sleepless nights.
In one common trick, a fraudster purchases a high-end car, insures it with as many as three insurance firms, claims its loss through theft or write-off and ends up with three new cars and the “wreckage” in one of the quickest wealth generation schemes in town.
ADVANCED FRAUDING Association of Kenya Insurers (AKI) says the battle against the cartel has been hard due to lack of a common system where insurers can share details.
AKI Executive Director Tom Gichuhi told the Sunday Nation that motor vehicle fraudulent claims have over the years become more sophisticated.
“I can tell you that a lot of people have taken it as a full-time job to design how to defraud insurance firms.
"Some of them are former staff of the companies with a deep understanding of the sector and good connections,” he said.
“We end up paying for a brand new Range Rover, for example, whose premiums have not been received for even three months.
"This can be done with as many as three firms as one ends up with three Range Rovers in a month or less,” he added.
DEMOLITION DEN In a case involving a Range Rover Vogue, the claim was processed as a write-off and ended up hitting four insurers in a classic case of how hard the fraudsters can hit.
Insured in May 2014, the car was reportedly damaged from an accident six months later and taken to a garage where an assessor recommended it for a write-off.
Since the owner gets priority to buy the salvage, he retained the original log book in the first and the second case and even retained it after buying the salvage in the third.
Unsatisfied with the hefty compensations, the greedy fraudster secured two more covers for the car still in the garage and promptly claimed for write-offs.
He succeeded in one. In the second, the assessors were shocked to find the Range Rover they had recommended for a write-off three months earlier was claiming the payment in a different insurance firm.
Insurers also pointed to what they described as a “demolition den” on Nairobi’s Thika Road where fraudsters take their cars for specialised crashing before being towed to a garage for write-off and claim.
Some of the cars crashed have vital parts removed supporting a lucrative second-hand car spare parts business in downtown Nairobi and Mombasa.
BRAZEN TRICKSTERS Some firms like Jubilee Insurance have since established a full-fledged forensic fraud investigations unit with highly trained investigators to deal with the menace.
The investigators who spoke to us in confidence said the fraudsters are so bold that they channel complaints to the highest authorities and pile pressure to push for compensation on the fake claims.
In another case, a client (in emails seen by the Sunday Nation) had pushed for a write-off after making four claims in two years totalling Sh633,748.
The car had allegedly hit the rear of a trailer on Mombasa Road.
His account of the accident failed to tally with the damage since the “targeted” destruction had not affected the engine part to qualify for a write-off.
CCTV footage at the scene did not even show his car at the location during the time of the alleged accident.
In some instances, the fraudsters also use insurance firms to launder their high-end cars imported fraudulently and those stolen from overseas.
Payments received from the claims are used to buy cars through proper channels effectively cleaning the dark deals.
VEHICLE SMUGGLING
KRA last year said over 400 cars were suspected to have entered Kenya illegally.
Out of the 121 that were blacklisted complete with owners’ names and registration details, more than 100 are still at large.
Data from insurance firms shows that 406 cars were claimed under theft in 2016, a 37 per cent fall from 646 reported in 2015.
And 66 per cent of the 2016 numbers were cars stolen from parking points in a well organised crime.
Mr Gichuhi said the fraudsters had started a shift from hard fraud to a softer one involving the sale of motor vehicle parts.
“This one even hits our customers since they end up with substandard parts when we are given a claim for pricey genuine parts.
"The labour charges are also exaggerated in collusion with the assessors and the garage owners, leaving firms bleeding millions in losses,” Mr Gichuhi said.
Insurance Regulatory Authority is yet to release statistics for the 2016 Insurance Fraud Investigation Unit (IFIU) report, but the 2015 results showed that fraud had worsened by 21.8 per cent compared to 2014.
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