Insurance Claims to be Tested by Lie Detector

Albanach writes "HBOS, one of the largest UK banks is to introduce random lie detector analysis of insurance claims according to this article from the Edinburgh Evening News. The three month trial will see calls from its 1.5 million policy holders randomly subjected to voice stress analysis. Those flagged up will then receive a set of questions designed to expose 'potential fraudsters'."

Comments

Hmmm...

[TWX]

Well, if they don't use the lie detector test as the only way of establishing truth or deception, this might not be completely terrible.

Remember, police don't generally use the polygraph to make a direct case against someone. They use it in conjunction with hard evidence and a narrowed list of suspects for a particular, established crime. As long as an insurance company is smart enough to not use the test to try to claim "you're lying! You weren't hit by the other driver" based on a nervous test taker who trips the system simply by knowing that (s)he is taking it, and they go on other evidence as well, like police reports and the like, things should be okay.

For other things, like theft, if someone is confident enough that they'll succeed by reporting something stolen, then trying to claim it on insurance, it's pretty likely that they'll now take steps to practice to lie to a polygraph convincingly. That would render things completely useless.

Either way, we'll have to see what the results of use are, and hope that they don't claim fraud upon people who are exhonerated later.

Post-facto

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Funny they don't require this before they take your money. Maybe they should be subject to my lie detector when I subscribe with them: are they really going to be there 24 hours a day with a hold time of under 10 minutes? Will they settle all of my claims, or just the claims that they feel are reasonable? If a natural disaster occurs, and several $Billions are filed simultaneously, will I still be covered, or will they simply go bankrupt? Will they really save me 15% or more?

Really, brillant strategy. Take money, and then decline service later. Maybe computer techs should be in the same business: I'll take your money now, but when you need service I'll just blame it on you and continue to post to /.