There’s an opportunity to prevent increasing fraud losses in the insurance sector by shining a light on fraudster activity in the telephony channel, writes Jamie Melling.
Fraudsters continue to target insurers across the policy and claims lifecycle, costing the industry significant time and money in fraud losses and investigations, and negatively impacting customers.
In response, approaches to insurance fraud prevention have matured significantly over the past decade, with insurers investing heavily in a range of controls. However, the telephony channel, a common entry point for fraudsters, still remains relatively vulnerable.
For insurers that take additional steps to monitor and secure this channel, there’s an opportunity to gain access to suspicious behavioural signals that are difficult to observe elsewhere. These signals provide the insight needed to prevent substantial fraud losses.
Insurance fraud across the policy lifecycle
Fraud spans all lines of business and can be notoriously difficult to track, especially at the earlier quote and application stage.
Like most genuine customers, bad actors switch between channels – online, mobile and telephony – depending on what they are trying to do. Regardless of route, fraudsters then go on to commit a wide range of fraud, including:
- Serial policy applications and ghost broking, often across multiple insurers
- Impersonation using stolen identities or the use of synthetic identities
- Policy hijacking and unauthorised changes/MTAs
The role of the telephony channel
The telephony channel plays an important role for fraudsters. The ability to mask caller identity through number spoofing and withheld numbers makes it easy for fraudsters to operate under the radar, especially when real-time call blocking and redirection can be a real challenge for contact centres.
Calls from fraudsters can reach time-pressured agents unchecked, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation – fraudsters are highly skilled at using social engineering techniques to persuade agents to act on their behalf.
Fraudsters use the telephony channel as:
- A means to bypass digital controls: calls to test security processes; to avoid device, payment or authentication controls; to deploy social engineering techniques; and to commit fraud
- An intelligence-gathering channel: calls to steal or verify policy or policyholder information
- A precursor to fraud: calls requesting quotes or to set up new policies; calls to establish FNOL or during claim handling; calls to amend policy details mid-term
The opportunity in telephony data
When telephony interactions are captured and analysed alongside other fraud management information, they can create valuable links between otherwise separate fraud events, connecting activity across policy acquisition, servicing and claims.
It starts with the ability to identify the actual number a person is calling from. Then, by treating phone numbers as persistent risk identifiers and joining contact centre data with fraud case investigations and outcomes, insurers can strengthen fraud analytics and reporting by establishing clear links between calls, policies and claims and revealing patterns of activity that would otherwise remain hidden.
Repeat actors and linked activity
Many fraud cases involve one or more calls before the fraud outcome occurs. Treating telephony as an early-warning and insight channel enables insurers to surface risk sooner and develop a more holistic, cross-channel view of fraud activity.
By analysing calling patterns, insurers can:
- Identify callers targeting multiple product lines or policies
- Detect the same phone numbers contacting multiple insurers
- Spot repeated calling patterns over short time periods
Making telephony risk visible in real time
With Smartnumbers, insurers gain a practical, low-friction way to identify incoming calls from suspicious numbers in their contact centres, enabling them to direct calls accordingly. Data related to these calls then becomes an essential source of fraud intelligence that can be integrated into wider fraud prevention efforts.
Smartnumbers analyses incoming calls before they are answered, enabling insurers to spot suspicious activity at the earliest possible point. With Smartnumbers, insurers can:
- Unmask withheld or obscured phone numbers
- Cross-check incoming calls against internal denylists and shared consortium intelligence
- Analyse caller behaviour for unusual patterns, such as repeated call attempts
Turning calls into actionable fraud intelligence
Beyond real-time detection, Smartnumbers enables insurers to build a structured view of fraud activity originating in the contact centre.
Post-call investigation capabilities allow fraud teams to:
- Identify the underlying phone numbers being used to conduct fraud
- Create and maintain detailed fraudster profiles, including phone numbers, tactics and methods
- Link calls to policies, accounts and claims to understand the scale of an attack
- Identify additional numbers and activity associated with the same fraudsters
This transforms individual calls into reusable intelligence, helping insurers move from isolated events to connected fraud insight.
Customer insight: “The confirmed fraud cases found on our new business line for motor insurance were split between ghost broking (58%) and applications using stolen details (41%). We caught several fraud cases at the quote stage, so we were able to prevent the policies being set up. This saves us thousands of pounds in losses and wasted time.” Read The Proof document and find out more.
Leveraging shared intelligence across organisations
Smartnumbers’ consortium model allows insurers to benefit from shared, cross-company intelligence, which is essential when tackling fraud.
Organised fraudsters typically target multiple organisations at the same time, so a shared view enables insurers to identify fraudsters operating across other lines of business, other insurers and companies from other sectors and validate suspected fraud more quickly.
By treating telephony interactions as part of the overall fraud picture, insurers can surface risk earlier, link related activity more effectively and prevent fraud losses without adding friction to genuine customer journeys.
Telephony intelligence becomes not just a defensive control, but a strategic capability: supporting earlier intervention and better collaboration across the insurance sector and beyond.
Find out more about the solutions we offer for the insurance sector here.
Download our in-depth report ‘Supercharging Insurance Fraud Intelligence’ here.
