New non-profit uses analytics on pooled company data to fight auto insurance fraud in Canada

The insurance industry has formed a new not-for-profit organization focused on using analytical tools to identify suspicious claims in the industry’s pooled data, to facilitate further investigation.

Canadian National Insurance Crime Services, or CANATICS, will provide insurance companies with a new tool to fight auto insurance fraud, a significant problem for the industry in Ontario in particular.

“By uncovering networks of connected claim activity across insurers we will help ensure that investigators focus their investigations on the right claims,” according to Ben Kosic, the newly-appointed CEO for the organization.

Kosic is a former partner at KPMG Canada and has more than two decades of management and information technology consulting experience, with a deep industry knowledge in business intelligence and data analytics.

In a report prepared for the Ontario Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force, KPMG estimated that the insurance industry pays out as much as $1.6 billion per year responding to fraudulent or inflated claims.

In the task force’s final report last fall, it recommended that “Insurers should move aggressively to establish an organization that would pool and analyse claims data in order to identify potential cases of organized or premeditated fraud.

CANATICS also includes a board of directors comprised of senior insurance industry executives representing a cross-section of the Canadian market.

The board includes:

George Cooke – Independent chair

Carolynne Jardine – Vice president of claims services at TD Insurance

Barbara Bellissimo – Senior vice president at State Farm Insurance Companies

Jay Stark – Vice president of fraud management at RBC Insurance

Karin Epp Ots – Senior vice president of regulatory and government relations at Aviva Canada

Kenneth Lindhardsen- Vice president of claims operations and legal counsel for Ontario, Atlantic and Western regions at Desjardins General Insurance Group

Kevin John McConkey – Casualty director at Allstate

Mark Feeney – Vice president for the Central Ontario Region at Co-operators Group

Mathieu Lamy – Senior vice president of claims at Intact Financial Corporation