An investigation by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (Ifed) found that Kevin Macey and Debbie Starkings worked together to make 82 fraudulent payments into her bank account.
The pair committed the frauds against RSA between early 2012 and July 2016, City Of London Police said.
Both were sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court this month.
Macey, 49, was handed a three-year, four-month term for one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of money laundering.
Starkings, 57, was given a two-year suspended sentence and given a 20-day community order, for one count of theft and one count of money laundering.
False claims
Macey worked as a personal claims specialist at general insurer RSA and colluded with Starkings to make false claims against an insurance policy she held with the company.
The police stated that in his role, Macey was able to agree to claims made by policyholders, which he did until 31 July 2016 when he took voluntary redundancy from the company.
Significant payments made
Internal controls at RSA then highlighted anomalies with Macey’s handling of a number of claims.
The insurer opened an internal investigation and learned an account linked to Starkings, who held a contents and buildings insurance policy with RSA, had received a number of significant payments.
RSA referred the case to the Ifed, and a full criminal investigation was undertaken.
City of London Police explained that a full investigation of Starkings found that Macey had handled her policy. He had helped her make five claims over two years which amounted to over £200,000 ($263,793, €220,098).
Macey then started to make false claims against other people’s policies and then would send the money for those claims to Starkings bank account.
Overall he had processed fraudulent claims for Starkings which amounted to £279,641.
Fraud and greed
“Macey abused the position he had been put in by RSA and took complete advantage of his customers, using their details to help him collude with Starkings,” said Simon Styles, the City of London Police’s financial investigator who led the investigation for the Ifed.
“Starkings was equally complicit in this fraud and her greed meant she went on to submit multiple false claims,” he added.
“The sentencing goes to show that it is not possible to get away with this crime and that we will do everything we can to work with the insurance industry to ensure fraudsters are caught and made to pay.”
John Beadle, the head of financial crime and counter fraud at RSA, added: “RSA have a zero tolerance attitude towards any dishonesty involving our staff.
“Once internal controls highlighted the activities of Macey and Starkings, we had no hesitation in reporting the matter to Ifed in order that both could be brought to justice.”
