Slashdot Mirror
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'."
Wouldn't it be natural to have stress in your voice if something has happened in your life causing you to file an insurance claim?
So, when their customer who has just been involved in an auto accident calls and reports the accident to the insurance, their voice will not in the least be affected by stress?
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Lie detectors are not effective. This is just being used to scare people into thinking they can't lie.
lie detector tests are about as good as flipping a coin. I wonder what the result would be if they just randomly chose ~50% of their claimants and investigated them...
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
I really don't believe they would be allowed to do this without prior consent. Calls are typically prefixed with a "this call may be recorded for training purposes" but I doubt they would be able to do the same thing for detecting fraud.
More likely, one would have to consent in writing which they may offer a reduced premium to encourage people to sign up. (In reality, the money they save will possibly not be passed on: instead the 'reduced premium' could end up as being the usual price and those not signing up will pay a penalty).
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Antipolygraph.org
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Unless I missed something, these are banks doing this not the government or police. And they aren't detaining you or performing any search or seizure. It is a phone system that looks for stress in your voice. I am sure it is pretty unreliable and not admissable in any court of law, though.
Or did you just mean - First Post?
Using voice stress analysis techniques to detect changes in speech patterns caused by stress, the machines will be able to make an initial assessment as to whether the caller may be lying.
A special series of questions has also been devised to try and catch out fraudsters.
And when was the accident?
Who was driving?
What's the capitol of Uzbekistan?
Pi to 15 digits?
I'm sorry sir, your claim has been denied.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Any time they come up with BS like this they always claim it will lower premiums and give some inflated figure of how much fraudulent claims are costing them, but who is to say how many of those fraudulent claims are not just the companies finding a loophole to screw anybody who makes a claim.
Can't stand them, they have a business model where everybody has to give them money and they resent anybody with a legitimate claim to it.
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.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Thank you for calling HBOS Insurance. Your voice my be monitored to detect tiny fluctuations that may possibly indicate fraudulent statements. This technology is very controversial and invasive, but will allow us to prosecute one additional insurance fraud case each year. Rest assured, the money saved by fraud prevention will not be handed on to you the customer. Please hold for the next available underpaid outsourcer with no job security to copy all of your credit statistics into our closed-source database running the most up-to-date NT service pack from 1999."
Moe: No
Lie Detector: BZZZT!
Moe: All right, I did. But I didn't shoot him.
Lie Detector: Ding!
Detective: Checks out. All right, sir. You're free to go.
Moe: Good, because I have a hot date tonight.
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: A date
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: Dinner with friends.
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: Dinner Alone.
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: Watching TV
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: All right! I'm going to sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Victoria's Secret catalog.
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
Moe: Sears Catalogue.
Lie Detector: Ding!
Moe: Now will you unhook me already? I don't deserve this shabby treatment!
Lie Detector: BZZZZZT!!!!
FBI agent Scully : This is just a simple lie-detector test. I'll ask some simple questions and you should answer with yes or no. Do you understand?
Homer : Yes.
[ The machine blows up ].
Head of the Dorks
From a page about the Truster Voice Stress Analyzer:
What is a voice stress analyzer, you might wonder? It is a machine that measures components of the human voice--frequency modulations--that are correlated with stress. No machine can detect stress directly, much less distinguish whether the stress is due to lying, guilt, stutter, fear, constipation, or some other emotion or physical condition. The frequency modulations, called "micro tremors" by those who measure them, must be interpreted by a human being. The machine doesn't do the analysis, the examiner does.
Here are some basic facts about insurance companies:-
1) They are out to make money
2) They make said money based purely on others suffering
3) They will try to weasel (no offence to weasels) out of *any* contract
4) Any money saved will *not* reduce premiums but increase bonuses and dividends
5) Insurance companies have never worried about legality. If they reject 50 claims (illegally) and only 5 have the time, energy and money to fight them they have made money on the other 45. All costs that the 5 have to pay, they cannot get back
6) Lie detectors are inammisable in UK courts - but that won't stop Insurance companies.
In the UK insurance companies work a "your a lieing defrauding piece of crap" policy. It's not even "guilty until proven innocent" policy. Most of the time Insurance companies believe _all_ people are trying to illegally claim.
Im a pathological lier. Polygraphs dont work on us anyway.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I've studied atmospheric phenomena for many years and I have yet to see bird contrails.
Perhaps the word you are looking for is this.
Although, I admit that bird contrails would be an interesting sight. =)
I've been submitted to a lie detector one time. Basically my house was broken into, and to clear my name, the police wanted to give me a lie detector test (i don't know off hand what kind it was) but i basically failed the test. The problem is that I failed the preliminary test too. I failed questions that were specifically designed to be correct.
Do you live in the state of michigan?
Do you live in the United States?
Are you 17 years old?
If you can't pass questions that are geared to be absolutely correct, than why do they still consider you failing the actual test as you lieing? I'm afraid something like this would happen in this situation.
Just giving my $0.02 worth.
I will endure to the end.
Apparently the system isn't capable of false positives. "You can't be innocent, the machine says you're guilty. And since only guilty people are caught by the machine, you can't be innocent. QED."
Also note that the article is talking about voice-analysis stress testing (over the phone, surely that couldn't ever be inaccurate), not polygraphs. Polygraphs are a crock as well, of course, but this isn't them.
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
--
$tar -xvf
On multiple occasions I failed polygraph tests that kept me from getting an internship. It's pretty annoying to have someone telling you you're lying. You're really quite powerless to do anything but deny it. Then they'll kindly show you the door.
These things have no place. They are not useful for job screening. They are not useful for investigative purposes. They are not reliable enough for any application. Congress was right to refuse to be polygraphed while under investigation- I would certainly refuse any future polygraph. They shouldn't be hypocrital, though. They should strike down polygraph use entirely.
Trusting polygraphs is a threat to our national security. Not only because double agents and such can easily pass them while lying (any well trained person can), but because so many qualified applicants are replaced with less qualified applicants who can satisfy the voodoo magic of a polygraph machine. Personally, I would like the very best working for the CIA, NSA, etc.
He added that it could also lead to lower premiums.
BZZZZZZZT! LIE DETECTED.
1) innocent people trigger lie detectors.
2) It becomes a 'prove your innocent' case if someone thinks you are lying.
3)people come to trust machines. So they will take a failable machine over a person.
4)the agent has to look at evicence and facts to determin wether you are lying.
5)IT put the burden of proof onto the victim.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, insurance really isn't. Note to pundits: I do work at an insurance company, albeit as a technology-related intern.
.96 cents.
This year my company had it's highest amount of money made in a long time off of premiums. After cat damages (mass catastrophies are tracked differently due to reinsurance.... it's a long idea, and I'm not sure I could explain it well)... anyway, after all damages and claims paid out, our company made 96% return on premium.
That is to say, for each dollar collected in Premiums for policies, we paid out
This was astonishing for the finacial analyist! Most of the time, these numbers are around 114 or 108. That means on the property/casualaty side of the insurance agencies, the company loses money on all premiums collected. (Not as a result, but it's a good ratio to be able to judge the industry).
Anyway, Insurance companies make most of their money off of Investments in Bond/Stock markets. Insurance companies really are brokerages of a sort. Say your company has a 401k-ish plan. That money gets paid under a group header to an insurance company. That company, to make money for itself and you, invests in bonds (at my company) and stocks (at some others... we don't need huge returns with large sums of money, especially for huge risks). With the money the company has invested, it makes money.
Insurance is not a sham, it operates under the assumptions that finacial analysits can make more money than a random algorithm that buys stock/bonds/futures/money-market shares.
Note, I am a 2nd year intern here, I know insurance from presentations, and a mother who works in the industry. This information is not guarenteed to be true, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works. Take a look at quarterly earnings reports from Insurance companies... look at the combined ratios.
Insurance companies, at least my insurance company, are not out there to screw policy holders. We rather like ours. We don't like fraud, fraud is.... fraudulent. I didn't have a high opinion of insurance either until I found out how it worked.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
No, but as they plan to use this method only to find possible frauds, and investigate them using more standard methods, your point isn't valid.
Don't you think insurance companies have some lawyers paid to think about such issues before spending money on them ?
blah
... as long as I can do the reverse. I want to make sure that when my insurance rep says "your covered" he doesn't mean "your covered as long as you never make a claim."
I also want to get a truthful answer to the question "Will I be dropped after my first claim?"
I'm more intrigued about the stress-levels part. They're testing it in the household insurance department, which means they'll be dealing with fun things like people who've just been burgled, or who've come home to find everything destroyed by fire/flood/whatever.
Surely under these circumstances, the voice-stress meters will be pegging all kinds of false positives and so on? I know I'd be all over the place, so any stress analysis is likely to be inherently flawed in such a situation...
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
However heres the thing... contrast that with the scenario of someone who wasn't burgled or who set the fire themselves and as such lost everything on purpose for the money.
I would bet dollars to donuts the stress would be different.
Or would it, I dunno, I supose I don't know much about what "Voice stress" really measures... but I can't imagine that a frauder and a real claim are going to be stressed in the same way.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Honest policyholders will have nothing to fear and combating fraud will make things better for them anyway by helping to keep premium costs down."
Of course they leave out:
1) He was lying.
2) Since he is a practiced glib liar there was no hint of stress in his voice at all.
First off, I have to laugh when I read an article where lie detectors are described as "scientific" "sophisticated" and "accurate." They are frequently described as such, but it is clearly not the case. Even proponents, when pressed, always end up admitting that the "lie detector" is supposed to test stress levels; in other words, proponents of lie detectors usually lie in order to push them as a panacea.
Secondly, the biggest, oldest lie any insurance company can tell is that their rates are going to go down if you allow them to implement something. Insurance companies have historically tried to push legislation, promising practically every time that such legislation / policy change / newfound power will result in lower rates (mandatory automobile coverage comes to mind) but it never does. I go so far as to say I would think anyone would be hard pressed to come up with a single form of insurance in which rates have *ever* gone down, in fact.
Thirdly, the insurance company says that lie detector tests have been successful in reducing fraud. They do not qualify this at all, but I would think being able to point to a number and say "We were able to deny X million dollars worth of claims on the basis of lie detector tests alone!" would be considered a success, especially considering that the avoidance of paying claims, at any cost, any way they can is a goal to all insurance companies second only to raking in your cash.
...is that most people generally have very good reasons for sounding distressed during a call an insurance company.
How is someone supposed to calmly explain they just lost their entire family to a car crash, saw their child die in a terrorist attack, or just permanently lost the use of their arm to the wood chipper? How are they supposed to do this while navigating the vast innefficient bureaucracy insurers have erected to keep callers to a minimum? Just getting through the bloody voice mail tree is often more than enough to send most folks into a rage, which'll probably light these lie detectors up like Times Square on New Year's Eve.
I get the feeling this is just another attempt for insurance companies to try and justify claim denials. Cheap and cruelly insensitive.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
a Voight-Kampf test?
"Teachers leave us kids alone