OREANDA-NEWS. March 15, 2011. In 2010, Ingosstrakh OJSIC managed to stop 1024 attempts of insurance swindling. It averted illegal payments for the total sum of about 525.4 mln. rubles, which is 6.2% more than in 2009. On the whole, as a result of work of the Department of Information Analysis and Protection of Ingosstrakh OIJSC, the funds in the amount of 658.6 mln. rubles were preserved for the company.

114 applications were sent to law enforcement authorities against unlawful actions in respect of the company.

According to the statistics, the biggest part of all the cases of insurance swindling is found in the sphere of car insurance. This is the most criminalized field of insurance business. In recent years, permanent criminal groups were formed in different regions of Russia that “specialize” in this sphere. One of the main problems is a large number of stolen cars. In 11 months of 2010, about 83 thou. Vehicles were stolen in Russia. During this time, 1264 applications were registered in Ingosstrakh OJSIC for the risk of stealing. Thanks to coherent work of the Department of Information Analysis and Protection along with law enforcement authorities, 29 vehicles, stolen previously, were found in the said period.

However, there also occur illegal actions connected with insurance of real estate bought against a mortgage, equipment, and property bought on credit or leased. There are cases of damage of the pledged property by fire as a result of an arson.

Among the most characteristic cases of swindling in the said period, we may mention the following ones: a fire in Irkutsk, where a claim was submitted to the company to pay the cost of the property destroyed by fire, which actually was not insured. In Nizhny Novgorod, the company received a claim about payment of indemnity for stealing of a VOLVO front-end loader, which in reality was taken away by its owner – the lessor in connection with insured-lessee’s failure to make leasing payments. In the city of Novokuznetsk, a large ungrounded payment was prevented of insurance indemnity in the amount of 30 mln. rubles. In the course of loss verification it was found out that the insured (a sole proprietor), who submitted an application about damage reimbursement in connection with the fire in the cafe that belonged to him, produced a fake agreement without a seal of the company branch, where he changed the term of the first payment of insurance premium without coordination with the insurer and forged the signature of an employee of Ingosstrakh OJSIC. The policy issued before was cancelled due to failure to pay insurance premium.

As regards insurance intermediaries that appropriated premiums and forms of strict accountancy policies, 19 applications were submitted to law enforcement authorities, and 15 legal proceedings were instituted after their consideration.

According to Aleksander Gulyayev, Head of Department of Information Protection and Analysis of Ingosstrakh OJSIC, the main tendency in 2010 was preservation of a stable high number of insurance frauds in the field of car insurance, and also in other fields of retail business. In this connection, it is very important to efficiently interact with law-enforcement authorities to prevent, detect and stop the actions related to a criminal attempt against material interests of insurance companies and their customers.