Insurance industry warns of fraud

28 July 2011 Last updated at 04:13 GMT The insurance industry says bogus claims are costing ?2bn a year Bogus insurance claims in the UK rose almost 10% in 2010 from 2009 to an average ?18m every week, according to the Association of British Insurers.

Investigators uncovered 133,000 fraudulent claims, with about 66,000 of these related to home insurance.

Motor fraud was the next most common, with 40,000 cases uncovered.

"Fraudsters continually look for new ways to con insurers, so we are upping our game," said Glen Marr director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

Examples uncovered included:

A claim for back injuries while working in a nightclub was rejected when Facebook images showed the claimant performing gymnastics;A claim for face injuries said to have resulted from a falling toilet roll holder in a fast food outlet was rejected when it was shown that the equipment would have had to have fallen upwards to cause the injury;A claim by a woman for the loss of a ?2,000 watch after a night out was rejected when the photograph she provided of her allegedly wearing the watch turned out to be that of a friend;A claim for injury said to be caused by falling over a wall was rejected when it was proved that there was no wall at the scene of the alleged incident.

The ABI estimates that insurance fraud costs ?2bn a year, adding, on average, an extra ?44 a year to the bill for every UK policyholder.

Crackdown

Over the last five years both the number and overall value of such frauds detected had risen by over 100%, the ABI said.

Nick Starling, the ABI's director of general insurance and health, said that tougher surveillance measures were being introduced to tackle bogus claims.

"Early next year we will be setting up a national Insurance Fraud Register, which will contain details of all known insurance cheats."

He also highlighted the launch of a national police unit to investigate such fraud.

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Industry or nature?

7 July 2011 Last updated at 17:44 GMT By Mike Williams BBC News, Sarawak, Borneo With Malaysia's Borneo rainforests already under pressure from palm oil plantations, they are now facing a new threat from the country's growing industrialisation.

The forest is dense, impenetrable beyond the cut trail, and the air is thick, hot and humid. What is most astounding is the noise of the insects and birds.

Whistles and clicks and hums, rattles and songs, rising and falling in intensity but always present.

The rainforest of Borneo is said to be the oldest on the planet, 70 million years older than the forest of the Amazon.

There are bright red centipedes and beautiful butterflies. There are crocodiles in the rivers, snakes in the dense bush, macaque monkeys and, at higher elevations, orang-utans.

In just the past few decades, hundreds of species of plants and animals have been discovered on Borneo.

The rainforest is one of the world's great, natural treasures.

Preservation v development

But it is also a national treasure and Malaysia, determined to develop its economy, has choices to make about how to ensure its natural resources pay.

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With the creation of this huge investment coming into this area, we expect a lot of job opportunities as well as business opportunities for the local, Malaysian people.”

End Quote Adie Abad Bintulu Development Authority The government has reached a decision - industrialisation is the way forward.

In the state of Sarawak, they are clearing land and pouring concrete for a massive industrial park devoted to heavy industries.

On one site alone, they are looking for foreign investment in steel, aluminium, petrochemicals and glass production.

Further down the coast, there will be other sites for food processing, fish farming, palm-oil production, information technology and, of course, timber.

Greenpeace, the environment campaigners, are amongst those who have raised concerns about how "destructive logging" and other commercial activities in Sarawak are damaging.

Yet, countries from around the world are investing billions of dollars.

To power this industrial site, they have built one massive hydro-electric dam, flooding 700 sq km (270 sq miles) of land and cutting down 230 sq km (90 sq miles) of virgin rainforest.

Another dam is under construction and a third is planned.

"I have never experienced any hydro-power project without someone criticising it," says Sarawak Energy chief executive Torstein Dale Sjotveit.

"This is really valuable to flood it, if you look at the benefits that Sarawak gets from it."

Development benefits The development of Sarawak is likely to provide a boost to the region's timber industry

That is the choice Malaysia has made. A standing forest does not earn much in the way of revenue.

A little eco-tourism, perhaps, or a few million dollars from the United Nations' scheme to prevent deforestation, cannot compete with the billions of dollars they have already received from foreign investors.

At a place called Samalaju, Adie Abad from the Bintulu Development Authority is escorting some Indian businessmen around the building site that will soon be an industrial park, trying to persuade them to invest, to build a steel works on the site.

Dodging bulldozers and trucks hauling gravel and steel, or diggers clearing the land, Mr Adie has high hopes for this place.

"With the creation of this huge investment coming into this area," he says, "we expect a lot of job opportunities as well as business opportunities for the local, Malaysian people."

"Maybe... in the next five years, you won't see those trees any more."

When asked whether Borneo prides itself on its trees, he says: "We will plant those trees later on - alongside the road, no problem. But we have to give way to the industry to come in."

Mr Adie's boss, the head of the development authority, Mohidin Haji Ishak, says: "Our priority is to have our people enjoy life.

"And, of course, we have a vision to become a developed nation by 2020.

"What we do here is as a result of the demand by the world, you know. We are reacting to the demand. I mean there is money to be made. Why not?"

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Water industry to take on sewers

21 June 2011 Last updated at 11:00 GMT The cost of maintaining the pipes is estimated to be the equivalent of ?162 per household each year Water companies are being told by the government to take on responsibility for the sewers that run underneath homeowners' properties.

Until now, households have typically had to fix problems affecting the initial stretch of pipe that connects their property to the sewer mains.

Some experts warn that water firms will cover the added cost by raising bills.

The government estimates 200,000km of pipes are involved, with a total annual cost ?4.2bn, or ?162 per household.

"[Water companies] will do what the government asked them, which is to take over responsibility, and [that will] actually simplify things... for their operations," said David Strang, legal and policy advisor at industry body Water UK.

But he warned that the industry does not yet know for certain the length of sewers being taken on or what condition they are in, so estimating costs is difficult.

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