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Investigators with online capabilities can go alias hunting, which often leads them to uncover related but otherwise undetected injury claims.
An SSN trace is a good place to start. There are a lot of things to be learned from an SSN trace. First, it’s important to learn if the claimant is indeed who he says he is. Second, it’s important to know where the claimant has lived. This is especially so because a third party claimant who has a preceding or intervening injury claim in one state and is not indexed by SSN will not be detected by ordinary Index searches if he/she moves out of state and has another injury claim.
In such a case, it’s strongly recommended to run a trace of the claimant’s SSN through an online data provider such as Infotek. (Infotek has just recently lowered the price of its three-bureau SSN trace from $25 to $13.) This information is not protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and is available to anyone with a legitimate business need. This trace will provide a list of all the addresses that the claimant has used for credit reporting for the past five years or so. It’s vital to run all three bureaus, because usually no single bureau has all addresses/names for any given number. It may also identify possible “alias” SSN’s or spelling variations of the person’s name. If the report reflects that the SSN has been used by more than one person, be a little suspicious. Note that many records have data for more than one person. Sometimes this is due to data entry errors; often the records of married persons become intertwined with a single SSN; and all too often, persons with credit problems will transpose or change digits in their SSN to “invent” a new SSN creating an alternate “clean” credit history.
The TRW (track #@) portion of the search will reflect if any variations to the SSN are associated with a given record. This is an outstanding way to uncover possible aliases used by a claimant. When an SSN trace shows other SSNs of record for the same claimant name/address, it is highly recommended to run these variant SSNs as well. They often reveal extensive use under the claimant’s name and may also reveal previously unknown addresses for the claimant.
A close analysis of the SSN trace will sometimes reveal “overlaps” where the same name and address are found with an “alias” SSN. In turn, it might also be discovered that the claimant has used several names at a given address. Depending upon how prolific a fraudster is, this linked searching can expand exponentially.
Infotek continues to lead the industry with other innovative searches. Their exclusive “MISSING LINKS” search by either name or address is a quantum leap in fraud detection. With only a name or an address, it is possible to uncover multiple alias names or SSNs for a given party.
Using a suspect claimant’s addresses of record, this search will reveal all the names and SSNs of record used at those addresses for credit reporting purposes with TRANS UNION credit bureau. This is another outstanding way to reveal alias identities or itinerant claimants.
Once the investigator has completed this complementary series of searches, he may have amassed many overlapping records which reveal the names/addresses and SSNs used by a single fraudster.
Now it is time to check for claims. The American Insurance Services Group (AISG) has an excellent new product called SOS (Search Only System). This DOS or Windows product allows member SIUs to conduct searches in a variety of manners. Electronic inquiries can be returned in as little as an hour, depending on the time of day the information is input. The system allows searches by name/specific address, name/state and by SSN. While the SOS software does not yet support searches by address only, this search is available to members via FAX. Matches are returned via mail. In the not-too-distant future, real time searching is promised.
The next step is to index the claimant by his/her name and every known address of record. If the individual has an uncommon last name, a statewide index search should be run. It is also important to search by each variation of the claimant’s name and by each SSN of record. This may reveal yet even more claims, addresses and/or SSNs of record. This process should be continued until all possibilities are checked – or until a strong preponderance of evidence of fraudulent claims is assembled.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has had the most elegant fraud detection search engine for a number of years. Search results are returned in real time. It is possible to search existing records by any field or combination of fields. This includes the ability to search by address, by name, by SSN, or any combination of these or several other fields. Recently, several major carriers have uploaded their casualty claim records to NICB. As a result, the NICB system is now giving AISG some strong competition. Enhancements being made by both AISG and NICB will significantly improve carriers’ ability to detect and deter fraud.
The same methods of searching should be applied to the NICB database as those undertaken with Index and the SSN Track-all to search out alias’s.
This new ability to search SSNs and casualty/WC claims by address is the greatest leap forward in the fraud-fighting business since the records were first computerized. A long string of fraudulent claims are already out there just waiting to be uncovered by these new tools, and these old frauds will live to haunt fraudsters for years to come.
Paul Penguin is an SIU investigator for a large international insurance company and is a noted authority on desktop investigation techniques.
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