Brisbane-based IVAA Claims has been crowned winner of the Beyond the Buzzwords pitch contest.

The jewellery validation service provides assessments, settlement recommendations and other advice for contents claims.

IVAA – or Independent Validation Advisory Australia – says current detection tools are inadequate at capturing contents insurance fraud.

It has a new tool that allows insurers to easily check if a document has been reused.

“We’ve seen a lot more fraud in our area, and we’ve built a series of tools to help insurance companies protect their claims,” CEO Matthew McHutchison told Insurance News’ Beyond the Buzzwords conference in Sydney last week.

IVAA has prevented $2 million of fraudulent contents claims in the past year, working with more than 5000 retailers across Australia and New Zealand, he says.  

In one case, it detected that a receipt presented as part of a claim had been used repeatedly.  

“Once we started digging deeper, we found ...  there were 20 claims across five different insurance companies, all under fake names, all tied back to the same person. This is one of many examples,” Mr McHutchison said.  

“Recycled proof of ownership happens way more than you probably realise. Rolex watches with the same serial number, indicating it’s the same watch being claimed again and again; items that have been pawned and then claimed as lost or stolen.  

“Through our distributed network, we can identify those scenarios – valuations that have been Photoshopped, or modified photos from eBay that have been used as proof of ownership.”

Also selected to pitch this year were Sydney’s e5 Workflow, Melbourne-based uBind, Queensland’s Codafication, and NSW-based FreightInsure.