Fraud prevention: The challenges in the world of insurance
The biggest challenge facing carriers today isn’t necessarily online fraud. Instead, it’s maintaining the delicate balance between deterring fraudsters and delivering seamless customer experiences.[i]
Today, there is one simple—yet underused—variable in digital fraud prevention: the email address. Most companies view the email address as only useful for things like customer notifications and marketing campaigns. But experts in fraud prevention know it is capable of so much more.
The email address is the global common denominator for doing business online. Whether it’s a new insurance quote, account registration, or virtual claim response, an email address is part of the process.
Why email is such a valuable piece of data
Identity verification by phone number often focuses on domestic coverage, since getting reliable telecom data varies by country. Of course, there are other methods to verify identity. However, for insurance carriers that operate on the global stage, these methods have limitations or may not even be available. Unlike a physical address, driver’s license or even phone number, the email address works globally. That makes it a unique global identifier.
Some important facts about email
- Consumers prefer using email accounts under their control. Corporate accounts are tied to jobs, which change.1
- Ninety-one percent (91%) of email users have the same email address for at least three years, and 51% of email users have the same email address for over 10 years.[ii]
- In most cases, an email address alone is not considered personally identifying information (PII). Because PII laws limit what certain organizations can use for fraud detection, it is safer for organizations to use an email address versus more sensitive data, where use may be restricted.
Why email is such a powerful fraud prevention tool
Email is the logical front-end fraud prevention layer. That’s because every time an email address is used, it leaves a digital trace. Over time, those traces reveal patterns of behavior. The email address provides an enormous amount of behavioral and transactional history that is perfect for fraud detection and prevention.
How businesses can leverage email addresses for fraud protection
Insurance companies can use an advanced risk assessment tool, such as LexisNexis® Emailage®, which has the user’s email address at the core. Using such a tool can enable business teams to:
- confidently assess risk; and
- outsmart ever-evolving fraud tactics more effectively
Emailage works in two ways:
- It brings together physical data, digital data and dynamic fraud signals—creating a holistic view of who is really behind a transaction
- It offers less friction than other methods (such as manual review) of determining whether a transaction is a fraudulent attempt or a legitimate customer
Fueled by global digital insights and shared transaction history, Emailage provides a global network that gives users risk decision confidence that’s always improving. With more than 5.9 billion digital identifiers in the network, Emailage brings together all of the data types listed above to ensure a more complete look at the true identity behind the transaction.
The benefits of using the right risk assessment tool
You can optimize your risk assessment process, gaining efficiency with seamless integration into your existing technology to help:
- gauge the risk connected to a customer’s email address;
- identify and prevent fraud on online transactions;
- increase top-line revenue by accepting more legitimate customers; and
- make confident, efficient manual review decisions
Companies can benefit from having multiple fraud intelligence signals—and using email as a lens into consumer identities helps build a stronger, multilayered digital fraud defense strategy.
Advanced risk assessment tools, such as Emailage, can help insurers make confident risk decisions in an environment of evolving fraud tactics—while improving the user experience at every stage of the customer lifecycle.
[i] Source: LexisNexis Risk Solutions Report, February 2017
[ii] Source: “DMA Insight: Consumer email tracking study 2015,” The Direct Marketing Association, retrieved 26 April 2017 from https://dma.org.uk/uploads/56543b6e6d645-email- tracking-report-2015_56543b6e6d5b5.pdf