Could AI Facial Recognition Combat Insurance Fraud?

Insurance fraud is big business. Last year, some 125,000 claims were detected in the UK, worth £1.3 billion, according to research by the Association of British Insurers. But could a new generation of AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered face and behaviour analysis software apps help detect fraudulent claims?

One company, We See, thinks so and says that the next steps in AI technology development spells good news for insurers. That’s because it will take facial recognition to a new level by being able to detect suspicious behaviour in real time through monitoring and analysing pupil dilation, eye movement, gaze, speech patterns and tone of voice, along with identifying seven key human emotions. A bit like the scenes in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner, where a test is applied to detect humans from robots.

Applied to claimants, it has the power to transform the way insurance companies help process claims and assess their validity more scientifically and accurately than ever before.

The system is currently being developed for insurance companies to assess claimants’ facial expressions for suspicious signals. The claims handler would simply interview the claimant using their smartphone camera, which would be feeding back visual data and cues to an AI-driven intelligent computer system.

Using advanced deep learning techniques, the system would analyse an individual’s responses and micro-emotion reactions to a set of questions in real time and deliver an assessment of their veracity to the insurer almost instantly. This would be in the form of a visual dashboard delivering key guidance to the claims handler, enabling them to do their job more effectively by flagging up clearly the most suspicious claimants for further, more detailed investigation.

In a lighthearted test, early versions of the system were used to assess just how convincing Jeremy Corbyn’s and Theresa May’s speeches were during this year’s General Election with strong results – which remain behind closed doors, according to We See.

In 2018, insurers will get the chance to use the technology on bona fide claimants to help reduce the huge burden of fraudulent claims that is currently draining insurance company profits.