Insurance fraud: the new magic wand for get-rich Ghanaians
There are several stories of migrants trying to enrich themselves through false insurance claims abroad and Ghanaians are not left out. The common ones include the orchestration of accidents.
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There is one story of a woman who simulated an accident. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned and she ended up losing her leg.
As would be expected, she grieved in silence as she could neither divulge the real cause of her predicament to the police nor her dear ones.
Stories about insurance fraud have moved from rumours to true stories that are injuring the reputation of the country. Some Ghanaians abroad are becoming notorious not only for dealing in drugs but also engaging in insurance fraud, among other crimes.
A private investigator and Chief Executive Officer of Tiger Force Consult Group GH. Ltd, Mr Percy Boamah, who told the Daily Graphic about this situation, said the issue of insurance fraud was worrisome, as some insurance companies abroad have to spend more time and money to scrutinise claims by hiring investigation companies to assist them to establish the authenticity of claims by Ghanaians.
Cases
He stated that last year, his company, Tiger Force, investigated 28 insurance fraud cases out of which 21 turned out to be fraudulent. This year, the cases increased to 36 and 23 of them were not genuine.
Mr Boamah said for instance that a Ghanaian living in the UK visited Ghana and went back with huge medical claims. The insurance company found something not right about it and, therefore, hired Tiger Force to investigate. It was found at the end of investigations that the claimant reported to the hospital all right but managed to get receipts from the hospital which did not support what was in its records. Subsequently, the whole claim was dishonoured.
Another from the United States of America claimed she had been burgled of jewellery worth millions of dollars which she had brought to Ghana for a wedding.
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Investigations showed that contrary to what she claimed, there was no sign of burglary in her house; no one in that house knew nothing about any theft, not to speak of jewellery, and there was no sign of repairs on a door which she claimed had been damaged by the burglars. In addition, the managers of the venue she claimed she had hired for the wedding had no knowledge of the booking.
Mr Boamah is concerned that the trend of affairs would naturally affect genuine claimants.
“People who have genuine claims would have their compensation unnecessarily delayed because of investigations and scrutiny. What this is doing to the country’s reputation is not good,” he said.
He added: “What claimants should realise is that the world has become a small global village and most of these companies will not pay suspected false claims until they are investigated and justified.”
Counterfeits
Another issue the investigator raised was counterfeiting. He has observed that a number of products on the market are not genuine; especially computers and their accessories.
In one case, a so-called reputable company had in stock fake APC Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for computers but had a few genuine ones too. What the salesmen do is to convince the buyer to purchase the fake one since the profit margin on those were bigger than the genuine ones and the price was far cheaper.
The investigation company was recently hired by Schneider Electric, who are the manufacturers and patent owners of APC products, to investigate a similar case for it.
It found that the fake UPS were likely to be responsible for a number of fire outbreaks in offices. When the power to the fake UPS are left on in offices, especially during unofficial working hours, they heat up and slowly burn until they engulf a whole building if it is not detected early.
Consequently, the company had to destroy the fake UPS and some components they found in stock.
Mr Boamah has, therefore, advised buyers to beware and deal with authorised dealers, verifying from their website.
Writer’s E-mail: [email protected]