Insurance Fraud

David Williams

Chair CII Underwriting Faculty, MD Claims & Underwriting, AXA

Biography

David has over 20 Years experience in General Insurance, roles including Chief Commercial Underwriter at one of AXA’s largest branches, Reinsurance Manager, Casualty Insurance Manager, before moving to claims in 2003.

He was heavily involved in the government and ABI responses to the ‘Liability Crisis’ in his previous role as Casualty Manager, and continues his lobbying work as the insurance industry looks to remove unnecessary costs and delay from the current adversarial compensation process.

David is a non Executive Director of AXA Assistance UK, a Board Member of the CII / CILA Faculty of Claims, and was a Director of Thatcham, the Insurance Industry Motor Vehicle Research Institute for four years.

He is a member of the AXA Group Claims Board and has represented the UK on Asbestos, Health, Pollution and Fraud issues. He speaks regularly at conferences and other events in the UK and Europe on a variety of subjects including most recently improving customer satisfaction, flooding and climate change.

David has also appeared on BBC Breakfast TV, BBC and Channel 4 News, as well as Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme, being interviewed on topics varying from Compensation Culture to Business Crime.

David originally hails from Bristol but now lives in Suffolk with his wife Catherine and 2 young sons Evan & Ryan.

Richard Davies

Group Fraud Manager, AXA Group

Biography

Richard is a career investigator, leading investigations in the Investments, Life, General and Healthcare insurance sectors. He is currently employed by AXA UK as their Group Fraud Risk Manager, working with senior management to identify and scale fraud risks, lead the resolution of complex fraud events, and build strategic prevention and detection controls.

Richard sits on the academic board of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth. He is a vocal champion of collaborative approaches to manage financial crime and was heavily involved in the definition and formation of the Insurance Fraud Bureau concept. On behalf of the ABI Financial Crime Committee he is now leading the development of the Insurance Fraud Register project.

DSI Bob Wishart

Head, Insurance Fraud Enforcement Dept, City of London Police

Biography

Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart

Bob joined the City of London Police in February 1984. He is a career detective and experienced Senior Investigating Officer with operational experience ranging from murder investigations through to serious public disorder and complex financial crimes. He also has extensive experience in the management of covert policing operations.

Bob's career reflects the primacy of the City of London Police in the investigation of economic crime. Having initially been posted to Operation Dash, the collapse of Johnson Mathey Bank in 1988, he has at various stages in his career specialised in cheque and payment card crime; complex commercial fraud, money laundering investigation and asset recovery.

Bob has extensive experience of working with foreign law enforcement agencies. He has been involved in several successful investigations with European agencies and US Law Enforcement agencies including US Postal Inspection Service, US Secret Service, DEA, HSI and FBI.

Between 2002 and 2004 he was seconded to work on a joint US/UK Government initiative based in Miami. Working with the FBI, Bob investigated money laundering, fraud and government corruption in the eastern Caribbean states (notably the UK Overseas Territories) and received a number of letters of commendation for his work.

As Head of Operations at the Economic Crime Directorate, Bob now has responsibility for enforcement and prevention activity. Currently the focus of his fraud work centres around investment fraud, intellectual property crime, Share sale fraud (boiler room fraud), organised mortgage fraud, insurance fraud and payment card crime as well as targeting in excess of 140 diverse organised crime groups known to be concerned in non fiscal criminality.

Mark Cliff

Managing Director, Ageas Insurance

Biography

Mark Cliff joined Ageas Insurance Limited as Managing Director in October 2008, building on the award-winning general insurance business in the UK and focusing on optimising its position in the market as a leading provider of customer-focused insurance solutions. Mark is a member of the Ageas UK Board and is responsible for leading the development of Ageas's core competencies in underwriting and claims management, across the Gloucester and Eastleigh offices, with a continued commitment to distributing via Ageas's extensive broker network, intermediaries and affinity partners.

Mark joined from AXA Insurance, where he held the position of Markets, Managing Director, with responsibility for all distribution channels, commercial branch operations, as well as customer service and marketing.

Mark makes an active contribution to the industry, through the Association of British Insurers where he chairs the travel committee and is involved with liaison with motor manufacturers.

Matt Gilham

Head of Financial Crime, eSure Insurance

Biography

Matt Gilham is the Head of Financial Crime for esure Insurance with overall responsibility for design and delivery of counter fraud and financial crime strategy and management of operational fraud investigation, money laundering, analysis and intelligence teams.  He has over 20 years experience in the field of fraud risk management including ten years working in the insurance and banking sectors.

Steve Phillips

Head of Fraud Services, Legal & General Insurance

Biography

Steve joined Legal & General in 2004. He is a MIIA qualified Auditor with over 20 years experience in a range of Financial Services firms. During his career with
Legal & General Steve has worked in Operational Risk, Business Continuity and is now Head of Fraud Services for their insurance business.

Steve started his career with NatWest Bank in the late 1980's working in a number of branches across the West Midlands. He undertook a variety of customer facing roles and then moved into personal and business lending. In the mid 1990's Steve moved to NatWest Mortgage Services in Birmingham to manage a team of Mortgage Underwriters. He subsequently took up as position as Operational Risk Manager overseeing corporate governance.

Steve also worked with Active Resources as a Project Manager and Wesleyan Assurance Society as an Internal Auditor, before joining Legal & General.

Steve is married with three children and lives near Wolverhampton. He spends much
of his spare time supporting his children with their evening and weekend activities. Outside of this Steve is a big sports fan and in particular follows the fortunes of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Scott Clayton

Claims Fraud & Investigations Manager, Zurich Insurance Group

Biography

Scott Clayton manages Zurich’s Claims Investigation Unit, a 30-strong team of professionals, including field and telephone investigators, intelligence team, legal adviser and support staff. This specialist Unit is dedicated to protecting both the Customers’ and the Company’s interests, using a variety of tools and techniques to ensure that all suspicious activity is properly and thoroughly investigated.

During his 23 years with Zurich, Scott has dealt with claims across all lines of business and all distribution channels and, in a previous role, headed up the Complaints Team, managing the Company's relationship with the Financial Ombudsman Service. This involved making technical decisions, ensuring compliance with regulatory rules and protecting the Company's reputation and brand. No stranger to speaking at Industry events, Scott was previously a member of the ABI Complaint Steering Group and a co-author of the ABI's Complaint Handling Guide.

These days, as Claims Fraud & Investigations Manager at Zurich, Scott is responsible for the identification and investigation of all suspect claims across the General Business in the UK. He represents Zurich on the ABI Anti Fraud Committee and is a Board Member of the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Phil Bird

Interim Director, Insurance Fraud Bureau

Biography

Phil Bird was appointed as the Head of Customer Services at MIB in 2011. Phil's key responsibilities include service delivery and customer-facing activities in the Claims area.

Phil has an extensive background in the insurance industry. Having started his career working for Guardian Royal Exchange in the London Market focusing on the underwriting of property insurance, he went on to develop a provincial broker operation for commercial lines business at Royal London and manage their underwriting team in 1989.

In 1996, Phil joined Guardian Direct as Household Underwriting Manager and, following the merger with AXA, became Household Underwriting Manager for all distribution lines.

From the role of Head of Product Development at AXA, Phil joined Groupama Insurances in 2004 as Underwriting Director. He became Director of Claims in October 2008 where he managed large teams of operational and technical staff across three claims centres and Groupama's head office.

As Head of Customer Services and a member of the Executive Management Team, Phil has overall responsibility for the delivery of claims handling services, recovery and anti-fraud work at the Bureau.

A graduate in Economics, Phil is also an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Phil will take over as IFB Director on a six month secondment starting from 1 February 2012.

Steve Jackson

Head of Fraud, Equity Group

Biography

Following more than 20 years service as a police officer, Steve has spent 12 years working in counter-fraud. After almost 5 years as a Special Investigator he joined Zurich Insurance as the National Fraud Controller with responsibility for counter-fraud strategy in the Public Sector business and Liability Claims.

In his last two years at Zurich Insurance, Steve played a key role in the implementation of analytics technology to combat Claims Fraud. He joined Equity Insurance in September 2011 and has overall responsibility for counter-fraud activity across all aspects of the business including claims and underwriting.

Martyn Holman

Head of UK Broking, Brightside Group

Biography

Born and educated in Southampton, Martyn's first job was as a Trainee Underwriter with Cornhill Insurance. There, he was inspired by the success of the Company's Business Relationship Managers to pursue his career path in Insurer Relationships.
Since then, he's gained over thirty years industry experience, having held senior positions with Marsh, Zenith and Fortis before joining Group Direct and establishing One Business Insurance Solutions in November 2002. Martyn is now responsible for Brightside's placement strategy and relationships with the Insurers and Underwriters for all businesses across the Group.

Over the years Martyn has become an expert in the broking sector, recognising instinctively what will work and what won't. He puts this success down to his ability to understand both client and insurer needs, and having the ability to marry the two in a way that each recognises the added value in the deal.

Martyn is a firm believer that today, brokers can't be in the market without taking responsibility for the underwriting outcome and that by ensuring accurate risks are delivered to the Insurer, consumers will benefit from better rates.

Outside of the Insurance industry, Martyn is a keen golfer, often combining his love of golf with his annual holidays. He also proudly remains loyal to his roots as an avid Southampton Football Club supporter.

Ellie Soley

Senior Product Development Manager, Data, Moneysupermarket .com

Biography

Ellie Soley has been working in Price Comparison for a number of years, beginning her career in Comparethemarket.com as Senior Relationship Manager. Ellie has now embarked on a career with Moneysupermarket.com as Head of Pricing. The role focusses on using the vast amount of customer data generated by MSM to drive insights which help to shape and optimise customer propositions.