An employee of insurance company Ageas has been jailed after fraudulently authorising pay-outs.
Ben House, 31, of Southsea, admitted falsely submitting forged documents, adding false information to the computer system and authorising payments higher than he was approved to by using the log-in details of his team leader.
Detective Constable Simon Almond, who led the investigation for the City of London Police, said: “House thought that he could abuse the trust that his employers had put in him and get away with stealing huge amounts of money.
“He clearly did not care about what he was doing, even involving his innocent family in the false claims.
“By working together with Ageas we have been able to ensure that justice has now been served and House has been prevented from abusing his position. It is extremely unlikely to have a job in the insurance industry ever again.”
The fraud was uncovered when House, who was only authorised to approve insurance pay-outs up to the value of £4,000, went into work on 19 November 2016 while signed-off on medical leave.
On that day he made fraudulent claims to the tune of £40,000.
The following Monday another team leader started to review some of the claims which had been made at the weekend and became concerned that the team leader who had been supposedly authorising the claims was potentially overworked having to come in on Saturday to catch-up.
When she raised this concern, the team leader said that he had not been in the office and it wasn’t him who had authorised the claims.
Ageas opened an investigation and through CCTV footage and computer audits found it was House who had visited the office, made the claims and authorised them.
Francois-Xavier Boisseau, chief executive for insurance at Ageas, said: “This case demonstrates that we will not tolerate fraud at any level.
“As a responsible insurer, we are committed to doing everything we can to detect, disrupt and prosecute anyone who abuses their professional position to commit insurance fraud.
“We can also confirm that no customers of Ageas were impacted by this fraud.”
House was sentenced on Friday at Portsmouth Crown Court to three years and four months imprisonment.
He was arrested on 10 December 2016 at his home in Portsmouth and was interviewed at Portsmouth Central Police Station.
In the police interview he admitted that he had been committing fraud and claimed that he had been doing so to fuel his gambling addiction.
He admitted that he had been lying to his family and telling them that he was paying his bonuses into their accounts rather than telling them the truth about where the money was coming from.
House was found to have committed fraud by abuse of position between 1 August 2015 and 16 November 2016.
damian.fantato@ft.com
