Six weeks ago I was walking home from Norwich with my wife. It was about 10.30 and we had been to a pub quiz.
About a mile from my house I tripped over some raised paving on the footpath and fell heavily. I sustained a cut over my eye, a bruised hand and damaged my glasses. I walked the remaining mile home although the cut over my eye was bleeding profusely.
When I got home I realise my left hearing aid was missing. Having stopped the bleeding I drove down to the scene of my accident to see if I could find the aid but no luck.
In the morning I rang my Insurer and checked if my loss would be covered. They said it would be. The aid cost £875. The next day I had a call form the Zurich who advised me that I would have to complete a small test. The test turned out to effectively be a lie detector test which I apparently failed. I then received an email which said I had two choices
1 Withdraw my claim and they would cancel my policy
2 Agree to a full investigation and video interview
Effectively 1 would admit to me being a criminal
I agreed to the interview which did include a number of quite personal questions and which many would find intimidating. I found the whole matter quite stressful.
The woman conducting the interview did eventually conclude that my claim was genuine and that they would settle in full which they did.
Has anyone had a similar experience ? Are all Insurance Companies now acting like this?
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Insurance companies have been employing voice analysis on initial claim phone lines for a number of years, some of them at least 10 years or more, the subsequent screening leading to greater investigation. It has of course become much more widespread and sensitive with the advent of AI.
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LV has a robot asking you to confirm where you are and a few other questions before passing you on to a human. I understand was told that it detects stress in the voice.
I would suggest that most people making an insurance claim are stressed.
In CGN's example above, I wonder how long it will be before they get to "The computer says no" position and won't even allow the interview?
If they default to the initial scenario on all claims (false /fake) and hope a good proportion of real claims will drop off due to fear, then that is totally unacceptable behaviour IMHO.
Last edited by: zippy on Sun 8 Dec 24 at 21:58
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It appears it didn't lead to a very good position for the CEO of an American insurance company. I understand they had a reputation for denying claims.
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>>It appears it didn't lead to a very good position for the CEO of an American insurance company. I understand they had a reputation for denying claims.
Lead poisoning is also not covered by his company.
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Insurance companies clearly have a problem with fraudulent claims. I understand that.
They have adopted a policy whereby they hope that the threat of a lie detector test will cause the withdrawal of some fraudulent claims although they know full well that such tests have no scientific validity and that there is no court in the land that would accept the results of such a test as evidence.
I am sure that some fraudulent claims are withdrawn as a result of this process. I am also sure that some policyholders will withdraw perfectly valid claims as a result of this process. It is not pleasant to be called a liar by implication and have your honesty and that of your family questioned. It seems to me to be a fundamentally immoral process to knowingly deny a proportion of perfectly valid claims by intimidating your customers.
Effectively for certain types of claim, e.g.physical loss of an item, the whole basis or the insurance is dependant on the honesty of the customer. If an insurer cannot accept that premise then I suggest that they should not offer cover for risks where at the end of the day no physical proof of loss it’s possible. You can prove your house has burnt down. You cannot prove you have lost a ring.
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>> LV has a robot asking you to confirm where you are and a few other
>> questions before passing you on to a human.
Direct Line have something similar.
Needed to contact them on Friday to put a friend of Mrs B on my Fabia's insurance as Mrs B's gammy knee is still troubling her. I don't know whether it was phraseology or my accent but it couldn't grasp what I wanted. It then adopts a patronising tone along the lines of OK that's not working, lets try something else.
The outfit we use for interpreters at work has recently moved to asking you for the language you want. I've about a 50% success rate with that. As you can imagine repeating yourself to some dumb cluck machine while you've a distressed cl on hold does nothing for your equilibrium.
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>>I tripped over some raised paving
If you can find out the paving had previously been reported, you may have had a claim against the council.
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>> I agreed to the interview which did include a number of quite personal questions and
>> which many would find intimidating. I found the whole matter quite stressful.
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What sort of personal questions did they ask?
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I heard of someone who tripped over in an unexpected dip in the pavement and injured themselves quite badly (broken collar bone etc) and sue the council - I didn't hear the outcome so don't know if it was successful. When last in Portugal, while negotiating the hillocks and valleys which seem to be features of pavements there, SWMBO and I were pondering whether such a claim there would succeed.
Anyway - I don't know if the attitude was based on lie detector stuff but we found the insurance company quite challenging and demanding in their quesitoning and verification when we were burgled some years ago. The total cost to them was only in the very low thousands (in fact I'm not sure it reached £1k) but they quizzed us multiple times about the circumstances and what was stolen, and checked with my wife's employers that she really had been paid £300 petty cash she was owed on the day, also they wanted receipts for e.g. a moderately pricey (by our standards) Radley purse she'd claimed for - which was an eBay purchase - and a couple of other bits - such that we felt like the criminals at times, though I do accept they have a duty to challenge claims, as the amount of fraudlent ones is huge.
I think it was Saga and they put a condition on our renewal that if we were robbed again due to our keys were taken when we were out then we weren't covered. Quite what the relevance of that was I'm not sure, but they lost our business!
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I wonder whether the lost item being a hearing aid is relevant here?
Very easy to have an aid fail and then 'lose' it. My Mother had aids later in life and lost more than one even though she was housebound. I suspect that we'd have found then if we took the sofa apart although the vacuum cleaner is another possible suspect.
The cost was incredible for such a small item.
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Hearing aids are pretty high tech these days. My NHS ones are Bluetooth and I think would cost me £80 each if I lose one (probably below their true cost). Private ones seems to be £500 upwards and don't seem to get any useful improvements until you are well over the £1k (per ear) mark.
I bet there are people who think they can "lose" them" so as to get a spare set but even my NHS ones are "connected" and I suspect can be disabled remotely (and/or "they" would know if a stolen/lost one is in use).
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Smokie, what make/model is your NHS hearing aid?
One of the reasons I don’t wear mine, Oticon something or other, is that I often wear headphones at work and AirPods when walking/ exercising/ doing the housework, so I find myself constantly taking it out and then, of course, I don’t notice my hearing being any worse without it in. In fact it is far more peaceful……
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Mine have GN Danalogic on them.
I dislike wearing mine but as I get older they are becoming more necessary (well, I only usually use one as that improves stuff enough). Sometimes I don't even notice that I've forgotten to put them in, not least as I am fine with most sound but (maybe conveniently haha) female pitch is my worst range. I dislike wearing them in restaurants etc but I have to but they pick up all other kinds of sounds and conversation from all around so sometimes I'm better off without them!!
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........doing the housework . Aw, come on Bobby...man up !
Ted
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>> I think it was Saga and they put a condition on our renewal that if
>> we were robbed again due to our keys were taken when we were out then
>> we weren't covered. Quite what the relevance of that was I'm not sure, but they
>> lost our business!
Understand the relevance, if they half inched keys they could come back. Its quite common after a burglary for the ins co to insist all your locks are changed before they cover. Wont take your word for it tho, they insist on a company doing it from an approved expensive list.
Voice stress analysis is actually quite accurate as a fraud filter these days, and I accept the reasons for doing it, not however while they cant be bothered to properly filter out and investigate crash for cash or other clearly dodgy motor claims AND increase motor policies by 100% in 24 months.
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Yes, but they changed the front door lock as part of the claim and fitted about the cheapest nastiest and unsafe front door lock they could find. I soon switched it out for one with anti this and anti that.
The other keys were not on the stolen ring but I see your point - but if only they'd explained that rather than just slipping in an unannounced extra condition at renewal...
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Yet generally they insist in their T&Cs that you have 5 lever locks fitted.
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Mine all were, and still are, 5 lever!!
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>> Yes, but they changed the front door lock as part of the claim and fitted
>> about the cheapest nastiest and unsafe front door lock they could find.
When we moved, one of the first things I did was change all the outside door locks. Much cheaper to buy them than get a locksmith to do the job. Took care to open a new ebay account and get them delivered to a family member.
The family think i'm paranoid!
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Would never have thought of that BT!
In fact have bought locks online and delivered to my home address.
Mind you have also bought locks for 3 other folk and they were also delivered to my home address.
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Voice stress analysis is actually quite accurate as a fraud filter these days,
Is it?
I can attest that in my case ot was 100% inaccurate.
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we only have your word for that......
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You do indeed although I know it to be true . On the other hand as far am aware there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that such tests conducted over the telephone are accurate.
There is some evidence that such tests conducted in a controlled environment with a trained operator can achieve slightly better than a 50/50 result.
This is why we still have judges and juries and not a quick telephone call to establish an accused’s innocence or guilt.
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In all seriousness, its a way of life now, so it pays to be ready*. Be assertive, have all your facts rehersed, go ont he offensive, have prepared assertive statements. "Would you like to see a photo of my injury?" would you like to speak to my wife who was with me?, would you like a photo of the pavement? would you like to see my hearing aid prescription?
that kind of thing.
At the end of the day, its an initial filter, plus you say you failed the interview, which was more human based as well as a higher level of AI voice stress analysis than the original claim. The scripts are designed to catch you out. And don't forget they also use AI risk assessment, with many factors you or I may be unaware of. One I know of is social media trawling, to see if someone else has tripped over, and its not used as backing up your claim, more bandwagon jumping.
*mind you the AI might be looking for that as proof of fraud!
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“Be assertive, have all your facts rehearsed, go ont he offensive, have prepared assertive statements. "Would you like to see a photo of my injury?" would you like to speak to my wife who was with me?, would you like a photo of the pavement? would you like to see my hearing aid prescription?”
Indeed, I had all that information readily to hand. The issue is that the Insurer was not interested in looking at anything whatsoever until I had taken the lie detector test which I failed. I guess that they expect a significant number of people to drop their claim at that stage.
Once I got to speak to a human and present my evidence, I think the interviewer rapidly realised the truth of my claim. In fact from one or two of her statements I got the impression that she had little faith in the system either.
You or I may well brush this off as a way of life. Not everyone is as robust. It is a form of corporate bullying.
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>> You or I may well brush this off as a way of life. Not everyone
>> is as robust. It is a form of corporate bullying.
Even if that wasn't the trigger for implementing it I would guarantee it has been identified as something that will tend to deflect some claims.
'Hostile environment' stuff. Hoops to jump through. Even so, I think it or something like it will continue. Too many people make fraudulent claims. Very tempting to some when they need a new carpet (which someone actually boasted to me about).
Having got this far without a criminal record I'm not tempted myself!
Maybe it can be used to advantage - e.g. if you can pass the lie test you can get away with more? I was astonished when we put in our contents claim after the fire. Not one quibble, £37k in the bank the next day. Made me think I had been too kind to them. Which I probably had.
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>>Radley purse
Swimbo loves Radley and a few years ago I would regularly buy her something small from their range in the sales.
Then in June 2017, Debenhams were having a price meltdown with Radley products (bags, keyring, T-Shirt). I wanted to surprise her and bought 8 assorted items ranging from a keyring, to 4 handbags and 2 back packs, expecting to return a large number after she had chosen a few.
No such luck. On the day they arrived SWIMBO and Miss Z were home and they gleefully divided the haul between themselves.
The whole lot cost £340, but would have been between 3 and 4 times that normally so I was happy for them to keep them all.
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>>The woman conducting the interview did eventually conclude that my claim was genuine and >>that they would settle in full which they did.
It's not nice not being believed CGN.
I guess it's some comfort that it was just minor injuries, a fall can be devastating for some.
(Look at the NHS stats re life expectancy after a fall.)
Glad that your injuries were only minor and that your claim was successful in the end.
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'Had a fall' seems to do for a large proportion of elderly folk. Our coats should be lined with bubble wrap.
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Or airbags like motorbike riders have
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A son has a large insurance claim on the go - a good 6 figure claim.
He is covered fully but the insurer questions and delays not much happened so far.
£1.00 plastic joint failed and hundreds of gallons of water sprayed out in between upper floor and the ceiling below.
New wooden floors upstairs. some plastering upstairs BUT the ground floor is a disaster zone. New everything almost, ceilings, walls, everything electrical written off, some furniture better than other pieces.
He stripped all carpets on day 1, rescued some downstairs bits & pieces and moved to neighbour's garage etc etc - commercial de-humidifiers day 2 and ran for days
6 weeks and not much done - contents will be replaced OK (He had high insured/rebuild value and all goods over £3K were identified on his policy) but after 3 surveys & 2 contractor quotes deemed too high awaiting Contractor 3!
He was with a neighbour 4 nights, 3 weeks AirBnB and now has a 6 month rental.
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First Direct Bank has voice recognition software on their phone service. It saves providing your security details if you need to phone them, though I have to remember to not put the speaker on high while giving my name and postcode as it won't work then.
It's much better than having to remember letters two and seven from my password and the various other checks that proceeded it.
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>> First Direct Bank has voice recognition software on their phone service. It saves providing your
>> security details if you need to phone them, though I have to remember to not
>> put the speaker on high while giving my name and postcode as it won't work
>> then.
Santander have similar.
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When we had the severe floods in 2007 in Hull and surrounding area I popped into my friend and colleagues house as he lives nearby. he was away at the time. The living room floor was perhaps 3" deep in flood water. A neighbour had already been in and moved some stuff out of harms way.
When he returned home of course he contacted the insurance company. "Leave everything as it is until we can get an assessor round."
Yeah right!! As we created a pile of soaked laminate, furniture and carpets on the driveway in an attempt to start some form of drying process. Ironically it was a lovely day the following and subsequent days.
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Insurance Lie Detector Test and Interrogation - Zero
