Fraud-detection insurtech Friss to host October breakfast

Chubb Special Investigations Unit Manager Kevin Walsh will address attendees at a breakfast hosted by insurtech Friss on October 20 in Sydney.

The breakfast event, which comes after Friss took over the Australia and New Zealand insurance customers of US firm Polonious, will examine how insurers can automate Code of Practice compliance requirements.

Netherlands-based Friss, founded in 2006 and now in more than 45 countries, counts Chubb, QBE, CommInsure, IAG New Zealand and Tower as local customers, Business Development Manager Angus McNicol tells insuranceNEWS.com.au.

The Friss Trust Automation Platform streamlines processes for customers while automatically preventing fraud attempts.

“We have products at each step right from underwriting all the way through to investigation, if that happens,” Mr McNicol said. “It allows insurers to ask ‘Who am I doing business with? Am I allowed to do business with them? And then ultimately, depending on risk appetite, do I want to do business with them?’ So it gives underwriters a lot more power.

“Instead of having the bias and sluggishness of the human, looking at each and each and every claim, it analyses every claim that comes in for potential fraud.”

The AI models look for known fraud patterns, deploy a digital “war room” to connect subjects and objects associated with the insurance policy, assess metadata such as the geolocation and time of images, and check text for words more likely to be written by fraudsters, and even sentiment.

“At the first notice of loss that comes out, and then any anytime new information is added, the model kicks back in and does all of this,” said Mr McNicol, who has a decade of experience with startups and a background in mathematics and artificial intelligence.

The system assigns a FRISS score and a “traffic light system” of red, orange or green, depending on the insurance risk appetite. Red goes straight to Friss investigation software.

“We are looking to help insurers work with straight through processing – 95% plus all people putting in claims are good actors and we can change to trusting people by default, using technology that doesn’t have bias, to allow those good actors to be paid out.”

To attend the breakfast, contact Mr McNicol at angus.mcnicol@friss.com.