Why Should Your Company Hire Our Special Investigation Claims Investigators?

Q. Why should our company hire our special investigation claims?

A. There are an estimated 1500 insurance companies that conduct business in Michigan.  The lines of business may vary, but the need still remains the same.  Fraudsters will target anyone that does not take up a strong stand against them.

Many companies do not have a physical presence in Michigan and out-source their adjusting needs to independent adjusters. 1/3 of the 1500 companies, whether physically located in Michigan or not, do not have a Special Investigative Unit or SIU.  That’s where outsourcing SIU investigations becomes an important factor.  Even the companies that have SIU’s find themselves over worked from the increased number of fraudulent claims. Again, outsourcing suspicious claims investigations can help insurance carriers from being a target of organized groups or rings and keep the overhead costs low passing the savings back to their customers.  If you out-source your claims adjusting to independent adjusters, wouldn’t it make sense to out-source those suspicious claims as well?

The Los Angeles Business Journal suggests that outsourcing SIU investigations is a good way to reduce costs.

Q. We have an SIU unit already, why would we hire outside investigators?

A.  Providence-SIS has worked many cases successfully with in-house SIU investigators. As pointed out above, most company SIU investigators have a high case load and often do not have the ability to work a case “on the ground” in some jurisdictions.

Q. Wouldn’t paying the suspicious claim cost less than investigating it and then taking it to subrogation?

A. Insurance Fraud is an 80 Billion dollar a year problem.  Insured’s pay, typically, $300.00 per year just on an auto policy to cover the costs of fraud. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud states that insured’s pay over $950.00 per year in combined costs to cover fraud. This includes homeowners, health or life premiums. When you make a conscious decision to pay a fraudulent claim you open yourselves to repeated abuse.  Many fraudsters target companies that have made this their ongoing policy.  Not to mention, organized crime and terrorists profit from these actions.

In fact, taking time to investigate suspicious or fraudulent claims can reduce your costs and lower the costs of premiums to your loyal customers.  Do you think this will make them happy?

Q. Why should I hire a licensed Michigan based professional investigator to do my Michigan Special Investigations work?

A. Michigan law makes it felony for an unlicensed professional investigator to conducted business in Michigan.

Providence-SIS, is a licensed and insured firm in Michigan. With our experience, you can’t find a better company to out-source your work.

Q. If I hire you and my competitor hires you what prevents you from sharing my information?

A. Again, state law prohibits a licensed professional investigator from disclosing information from a client unless that client grants permission. Besides, let’s be frank, would you continue to hire us if we committed an act of mistrust?

Q. Why should we hire Providence-Specialized Investigative Solutions instead of another professional investigator?

A. There are many respectable professional investigators in the market place.  The majority are retired police officers that have had a career of conducting investigations.  The other companies are run by individuals that have taken course instruction to become a professional investigator. Both, however, lack the experience of the insurance claim process to effectively take a suspicious claim from the initial report of loss to the final settlement.

The overwhelming majority of Providence-SIS investigators have worked both in law enforcement and as insurance company investigators.  What does that mean for you?  It means that when you are talking to our investigators, you’re talking to someone who understands the claims environment.  We understand your claim handling protocol needs of time and budget.  We pride ourselves on understanding your need to weigh the costs of hiring us vs. keeping your overall claim costs under control.

The topic of ethics is everywhere in today’s environment.  At Providence-SIS, our commitment to ethics means:

1. We undertake each case with an objective approach and with no assumptions about the facts at the beginning. Sometimes an investigation yields results that are deemed by some as “unfavorable” to a client’s position, be it financial or otherwise.  Do you, as a client, want an investigator to “sugarcoat” their findings only to have that poor investigation fall apart in subsequent litigation or unfavorable publicity?
2. We will be very honest with you as we go through the steps of the investigation.  This means that we will honestly tell you that any more money spent on various tasks may not make any difference to you in the long run.  The last thing you need is an investigation company racking up unnecessary billable hours.

Members of the Providence team have also established a network of professionals from expert forensic investigators to Insurance Defense Attorneys that can speed up the claims process.