ABI gives advice on making compensations claims easier

People wishing to protect their luggage whilst travelling should make a note of what is in their bags and keep receipts to make it easier to claim compensation, says the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

A spokesman for ABI said that people should consider whether they need to take valuable items with them and ensure that they label their property “inside and out”.

Malcolm Tarling said that while he does not expect people to “have the receipt for a pair of ten-year-old jeans, but you should keep receipts for something you bought recently, especially if you are going abroad”.

Following the recent luggage fiasco at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 when at least 20,000 bags were mislaid, a number of travel insurers have decided to exclude baggage loss and delays for those flying out of Terminal 5 from new insurance policies.

The director of Go Travel Insurance Andy Taylor said that the reaction sent a message to travellers that insurers are only interested in their premiums and not their claims, reported travelbite.co.uk.

Tags: tarling, receipt, Financial economics, Go Travel Insurance, London Heathrow Airport, ten-year-old jeans, spokesman, fiasco

Insurance claimants to have sincerity tested by new technology

Insurance providers are to test the sincerity of claimants by using Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) software, according to new reports.

The software measures the level of stress in a caller’s voice sending messages such as ’stress’, ‘excitement’, and ‘high tension’ to diagnose the truth of a claim.

Digilog, the company behind the technology, has 16 insurance clients, including esure, Halifax, Provident and Highway, but has been criticised by human rights group Liberty for being unreliable.

Speaking to the Observer, Gareth Crossman, Liberty’s policy director, said: “It assumes that stress is indicative of fraudulent behaviour [but it] should only be used to indicate where further questioning might be appropriate.”

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has also been sceptical about the new technology being able to cure insurance fraud.

According to the ABI it costs £1.6 billion a year and adds an extra five per cent to premiums.

ABI spokesman Malcolm Tarling said that no insurers are going to rely on it solely because it measures stress patterns – and “when you claim, you have a certain degree of stress anyway”.

Tags: tarling, caller, tension, Insurance, sincerity, Liberty's policy director, crossman, group