Ageas is committed to tackling insurance fraud. As an organisation it is constantly innovating, and as an insurer, it continues to work closely with governing bodies and its competitors to support honest customers.
One scam the insurance industry is aware of is that of bogus tradespeople, and one of Ageas’s customers was the victim of such a scam.
When it became apparent that intentional damage had been caused, Ageas was on hand to support their policyholder with his buildings and contents policy claim.
Back in March, the policyholder’s daughter was working from home when there was a knock at the door. As the only person home, she opened the door to someone who introduced himself as a roofer.
This cold caller explained that while he had been working on a house across the street, he had noticed a dodgy tile on their house that he could repair for £25.
The policyholder recalls getting a call from his daughter detailing what she had been told by the caller however while his daughter had been on the phone to him, the man had got on to their roof. He returned to the front door to advise that having now seen the extent of the damage, it would actually cost over £700 to fix.
Later that day, a leaflet was posted through their door with a breakdown of the cost of the roof repair.
Using their smart doorbell camera, the policyholder explains: “I asked my wife to check with our daughter if it was the same man or not. They confirmed it was, and that’s when I knew it was suspicious.”
He continued: “A few days passed, and we didn’t think anything more of it.”
Three days later he receives another call from his daughter, but this time to say that water was coming through the ceiling.
He said: “I went up there and realised there was a hole in the roof. We lost the whole ceiling.”
The policyholder called his insurance company, Ageas.
Samuel Bullen, claim handler at Ageas, answered the call, stating: “Understandably our customer was worried, so I tried to reassure him about the situation. He relayed the interactions they’d had with the roofer days before and how that upon inspecting the roof, he could see large footprints in the felt around where the hole was.”
“As part of my role I have regular fraud training, and it’s upsetting to hear from a customer first-hand who has been the victim of an attempted scam. I advised him to contact the police and provide them with the photos of the suspect from his doorbell camera.”
Samuel appointed one of Ageas’s approved suppliers to visit the policyholder’s home and inspect the damage. Following this assessment, the customer received the money to repair the roof with a genuine tradesperson.
As a fraud consultant at Ageas, Sherre Wood is familiar with this behaviour. She said: “The details of this claim presented many hallmarks of a scam.”
“In this kind of set up, the bogus tradesperson introduces themselves typically with a story to endear themselves to the victim and attempt to gain their trust – such as fixing a loose tile at a reasonable price. Using this trust and the ‘expert’ persona they’ve started to build, they will then escalate it to a bigger threat – the hole in the roof – and in doing so incite urgency. Like many scams, creating this fear is a key step in influencing someone to behave less rationally than they would normally.”
“Whether this works or not, in cases like this they then cause the damage themselves as a failsafe to enable the next stage of the scam.”
“As an organisation and as an industry, we are working hard to tackle fraud. We’re thankful to our policyholder for speaking to us, and we hope sharing experiences like this can support prevention and help people be more vigilant.”
