A serial health insurance fraudster has been jailed for a year after submitting more than 130 claims worth £24,000 to multiple insurers under nine different names that seemingly targeted cash plan providers.
City of London police confirmed to Health & Protection that the claims were for “smaller payments, including a number of physiotherapy, chiropody, optical and dental treatments, among other things.”
Benjamin Wilby admitted starting the deception having previously been a member of one of the insurers through a workplace scheme and said he knew how the cover worked.
Wilby, of Acworth, Pontefract in Yorkshire was also found to have used his own grandmother’s bank account details to pocket his ill gotten gains for the scam conducted between December 2018 and September 2019.
When an unusual pattern of claims was identified by an insurer, the company referred the case to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED).
Wilby was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment on 8 August at Leeds Crown Court having previously pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation.
Fake receipts
An insurance company initially looked into four policies which had a similar pattern of claims and all were located in the Yorkshire area, believing there to be one individual behind these policies. During their investigation, the insurer uncovered 54 claims linked to these policies.
The company contacted the 10 medical professionals listed on the claims to ask about the treatments they had supposedly provided. The providers confirmed that they had not administered these treatments and that the receipts given by the policyholders were fake.
Consequently, the insurer referred the case to IFED for further investigation.
IFED officers arrested Wilby at a family member’s house in September 2019. Upon executing a search warrant on the property, officers found various pieces of evidence indicating that Wilby had orchestrated 134 fraudulent claims with the insurer.
The unit found further evidence suggesting that Wilby had submitted similar claims with two other insurance companies.
During an interview with IFED officers, Wilby took full responsibility for the bogus claims.
He admitted that he previously had health insurance with one of the providers through a former employer, and therefore knew how the cover worked.
A cash-strapped Wilby took out four policies in different names for the purpose of committing fraud. He used computers at home and in his local library to forge receipts from medical professionals, taking logos from the internet.
But he also confessed that he used his grandmother’s bank account details to receive the payments from the claims. He had opened bank accounts in her name, which he controlled without her being aware of their existence.
Large volume of bogus claims
Detective Constable Surinder Ram, from the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED), said: “Although each claim made by Wilby was relatively low in value, the large volume of bogus claims he submitted totalled a whopping £24,000.
“As well as this, he inflicted further loss on the three insurance companies he targeted due to the hours that went into their teams looking into these claims.
“The outcome of this case shows that fraud will not be tolerated at any level. IFED and the industry will continue to work together to ensure that fraudsters are stopped and brought to justice.”