Loqate help Sky Insurance capture accurate customer data

Sky Insurance is an independent insurance specialist providing customers with bespoke insurance services, including car, home and business insurance.

Like many service sectors, the insurance industry faces a range of operational challenges as according to the Association of British Insurers, UK Insurance companies receive thousands of fraudulent claims each year amounting to billions of pounds. In fact, the cost of fraud is now costing each household in the UK an extra £50 a year, through increased premiums.

Sky Insurance has always been at the forefront of tackling claims fraud, and have integrated Loqate’s address validation to ensure their data capture processes are more efficient and rigorous.

Controlling the correct address and postal code is very important to our industry sector. It’s always been important to the industry, but with so much less face-to-face contact and the challenges presented to us as a whole, it has become even more critical. It is important that we show our commitment to the prevention and detection of fraud to protect our customers and insurers and to keep our insurance premiums down, Loqate has been imperative to this process.

Perhaps more importantly, Loqate helps us to spot fraudulent claims early on in the claim process saving us time and money.

One problem which is affecting us all at the moment is the ‘cash-for-crash’ debacle, where individuals involve themselves willingly in a road traffic accident in an attempt to gain financially. There are different scenarios involved, for example the car that purposely slams into the back of a vehicle carrying a driver and four passengers. Sometimes fraudsters submit false claims for accidents that simply do not exist involving vehicles that don’t exist commonly known as "Ghost Accidents". Fraudsters are becoming more and more sophisticated and claims can include everything from vehicle recovery, car hire and personal injury.

Address validation is not going to stop opportunists presenting fraudulent claims, but it certainly helps us to validate genuine claims. In a way it’s a question of risk management and by validating the addresses of policy holder, it’s the first part of the risk management process. It’s a methodology that is applied at least to mitigate a potential risk that could ultimately decrease fraud.

The insurance sector, in common with other industries that are susceptible to fraud, have to protect themselves from the risk of having to process fraudulent claims. Illegal practices are inevitable, so we have to remain a step ahead of the fraudsters. Loqate enables us to capture and validate accurate information for every customer during policy application, which saves us a considerable amount of admin time in having to correct misspellings and mismatched data records.

Loqate is a leading name in the location intelligence and data verification industry, but unlike some suppliers, they’re never complacent. They understand that providing excellent technology and customer service is what has put them there and they still maintain that culture and ethos today.

- Barrie Simpson, eBusiness Operations Manager, Sky Insurance