IB join hands with CIB to probe doubtful claims

KATHMANDU, Nov 24:

The Insurance Board (IB) has joined hands with the Central Investigation Bureau (CBI) of Nepal Police to introduce scientific investigation system for doubtful claims made by policy holders.

The insurance sector regulator has started coordinating with the CIB to look into cases of serious nature and involving huge amount of compensation claims. We are soon earmarking some funds to mobilize police team for investigation into such cases, Phatta Bahadur KC, IB chairman, told Republica.

IB officials and insurance companies have been facing problems in claim settlement in the lack of scientific system to prove authenticity of documents detailing the loss of life and property submitted by the claimants.

�We have already launched investigation into cases of serious nature and involving huge compensation amount with the support of CIB added KC. He, however, denied to disclose details of the insurance companies involved.

Dip Prakash Pandey, CEO of Shikhar Insurance, said his company was also facing difficulty in verifying the authenticity of the documents submitted by claimants. We have been receiving scores of fraudulent documents in course of our investigation, said Pandey. Chairman KC also said IB has requested CIB to deputy only the senior officers to investigate such cases.

A senior official at IB said the unrealistic claims by clients have gone up in recent years taking advantage of weak statistics of insurance claim settlements in the past and in the absence of effective investigation mechanism into the cases.

According to IB officials, the problem is mainly in non-life insurance business as insurance companies are facing difficulty in proving authenticity of documents submitted by the claimants.

There are 16 non-life insurance companies in the country. Meanwhile, the IB has reduced the number of pending claims with different insurance companies to 12,000 from 30,000 of last year.

We will continue our efforts to bring down the claims backlogged with insurance firms to give relief to the policyholders,said KC.

Source: The Kathmandu Post