The Association of Kenya Insurers and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission organized a seminar on Fraud Management, Organizational culture & Behaviour change for Chief Executives of all Insurance Companies. The seminar was held at Serena Hotel on 17th July 2008. The forum provided an opportunity for the CEOs to propose recommendations to address fraud and governance issues in the insurance industry.
Thereafter, based on the recommendations from the CEOs workshop, AKI and KACC oranised the following seminars for training Claims Managers on fraud management as follows:-
Nairobi -The Nairobi workshop held on 20th November 2008 at Laico Regency Hotel and was attended by thirty-four (34) Claims managers.
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Nakuru - The Nakuru workshop was held at Merica Hotel on 21st May 2009. The workshop was attended both by Branch and Claims managers and had twenty-two (22) participants.
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Nyeri - The Nyeri workshop was held at Green Hills Hotel on 4th June 2009. The workshop was attended both by Branch and Claims managers and had twenty (20) participants.
The seminars in Nakuru and Nyeri seminars were targeting the insurance companies with branches in the the Rift Valley and Mount Kenya Regions.
The aim of the seminars was to provide an interactive forum for the Claims Managers to collectively identify measures that can be put in place to mitigate the risk of fraud.
Three papers were presented during the seminars as follows:-
Mandate & Strategies of KACC
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Fraud Management in the Insurance Industry
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Organisational Culture & Behavior Change
Ms. Lucy Kinuthia of KACC gave an overview of the workshop’s objectives and took members through the KACC structure and objectives. She outlined the partnership strategies that KACC has engaged with the public and private sector to come up with corruption prevention initiatives.
Mr. Kennedy W. Wabwoba of the Criminal Department of Investigations (CID) presented a detailed paper on Fraud Management in the Insurance Industry. He gave various recommendations on tackling insurance fraud such as creation of special investigation units within insurance companies, training employees on how to spot fraud, educating the insureds and sponsorship of fraud hotlines among others.
The last paper on Organisational Culture & Behaviour Change presented by Mr. G. Lukhoba of KACC outlined to Claims Managers the benefits creating and maintaining a culture of honest and integrity. Some of the recommendations he made included development of an anti-fraud policy that is highlighted in insurance proposals and whenever discharge vou
chers are signed. He also noted that the insurance industry could borrow from the KACC Integrity Testing Program.
The presentations are available on soft copy at the AKI Secretariat.
The Claims Managers held interactive sessions and discussed the following issues:-
In conclusion, the Claims Managers proposed various solutions to address fraud within the insurance industry.
It is hoped that these forums will form a starting point for the Claims Managers to implement the principles learnt in order to detect and address fraud in their respective companies. In addition the Association of Kenya Insurers and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission will review the recommendations proposed by participants and come up with an Action Plan on how to tackle fraud in the insurance industry.
