Insurance company esure will this week use voice risk analysis
(VRA) technology in assessing telephone claims – similar to the
technology used in lie detectors. It hopes that identifying stress
in a caller's voice will help fight fraud.
Esure stressed that it "will never treat VRA analysis as
'evidence' of potential fraud but will use it as a tool to direct
the examination of a particular claim towards hard evidence that
can be found through focused investigation."
"This," says esure, "will help to ensure that `false positives'
- where a genuine claim might be turned down - never occur using
the system."
The company also emphasised that its technology differs from lie
detection. "VRA cannot tell the content of someone's speech only
the frequency of that speech," it explains.
It has been shown that when a speaker experiences stress when
answering a question or recounting an exaggerated or false
statement, that the frequency of his voice changes. It is this that
VRA registers and assesses.
The system is intended to 'fast-track' cases where no adverse
risk is registered during the claim logging call, allowing payments
to be made more quickly. But where a high risk is indicated during
the call, further investigation will be carried out.
The VRA system will be piloted by esure for six months –
initially for higher risk claims, such as unrecovered thefts and
burn-out car claims. In the future, this is likely to expand to
potential staged accidents and home insurance claims.
Gordon Hannah, esure's Head of Claims, said:
"This system is not intrusive. Claimants
will be told clearly that their call is being recorded and
analysed. We believe the honest majority is fed up with funding the
cost of fraud so it is essential that esure works to identify and
act against potential fraud. Voice risk analysis is just one tool,
but we believe it is a very strong one."
To alleviate concerns about privacy implications of the system,
esure says it is writing to all UK civil liberties and consumer
groups and asking them to contact the company if they have any
concerns over VRA.
