Insurance Fraud

 

What is Insurance Fraud?

A cheat sheet for publicists, legal advisers, and insurance companies 1 / 11 Getty Images Each year, an estimated $54 billion is sent in "insurance fraud".

But what exactly is insurance fraud? Let’s break it down. First off, what is insurance? Insurance is a way to protect assets and property from being stolen. If someone steals your car and runs you over, they’re going to get some time in prison. If they steal your money and your car, you’re not going to get your money back. But if they steal your car and your house gets destroyed, insurance will come up with a plan to fix it and replace it with the same value.

 

So what is insurance fraud? Insurance fraud occurs when a customer doesn’t buy insurance. They can lie on their application, make up a reason why they can’t or don’t want to buy insurance, or simply pull a scam and sell the insurance themselves and pretend they bought it from a competitor who is then left with the liability. Then once the fraud is uncovered, the insurer will claim it’s the customer who’s the victim, and pass the financial burden to the customer. Most of the fraud is isolated to auto insurance. Fraudulent claims account for as much as 25% of premiums. Insurance companies are forced to cover the losses, pay out the fraudulent claims, and pay lawyers to defend themselves against legal challenges from the customers.

 

One example of an insurance fraud is a scam where the customer keeps driving a car that has had enough damage to be totaled. Once that happens, he'll report it to his insurer and the insurer will repair the damage and resell the car. Now, the customer keeps driving the car and when he’s rear-ended again, he’ll say the damage has been repaired. Then the insurance company will fix the car again, resell it, and collect on the money they paid for the initial damage. One person lost $10 million in this case alone.

 

Plans For Transparency Among the most valuable assets of a company are its top talent, its clients, and its intellectual property. However, the industry lacks a centralized repository for understanding and communicating this information. Without clear and open access, a company can’t ensure that it is identifying itself properly, maintaining relationships, and protecting its most valuable assets. How to Improve Corporate Identity

 

Corporate identity was introduced as a document called a constitution, which set out the rights and responsibilities of a company. This first-in-the-world, public corporate identity system had major benefits – it created some of the largest corporations in the world, with billion dollar brands. However, the legal challenges these corporations face in defining and defending their corporate identity have often gone unchallenged.

 

The global economy is constantly changing and it’s critical to define your identity in a way that is both flexible and concise. Companies are better off getting proactive about identity while they’re creating their corporate identity than waiting until there’s a legal issue. The more proactive your company is, the better the chance you will avoid being in a situation where you need to defend your identity against a lawsuit. In order to be proactive about your corporate identity, it’s important to consider how you think about the other identities a company has. All people use different terminology to represent companies, such as the name of the company, its logo, or a combination of the two.

 

 For example, a person who works at a company might say "I work at" instead of "I work for" or "I work with" rather than "I work for". The implication is that you are working for the company. Another example is to say "My company does X" instead of "My company does Y". This kind of ambiguity creates a risk because it doesn’t provide anyone with a sense of ownership. If a company’s identity is unclear, then someone could be using the company’s name without anyone else having the authority to do so.

 A company can limit ambiguity by getting its name trademarked. Another effective way to solidify your company’s identity is to create a corporate brand that’s clearly defined, in a memorable way. A brand is basically a name, logo, color, and symbol that are designed to make you instantly recognize the company when you see it. Unlike legal documentations, the corporate brand is less legalistic, which means that it can be more easily defended against unauthoritative or subjective claims that are made against it. Examples of a Corporate Brand

 

You’ve probably heard of companies such as Apple and Google who have created their own, widely recognized corporate identities. Many other companies have started to catch on and have realized that the branded identity works best for their corporate image.

 

An example of a company that has utilized a corporate identity is AirBnB, which has a recognizable logo and associated colors, as well as a well defined set of core values. Other companies are starting to get in on the branding trend. L’Oreal has recently announced that it’s working on its own corporate identity.

 

The role of the corporate identity committee has changed a lot since its introduction in the early 1900’s. Over time the committee has evolved from a group of lawyers to a group of designers, from a group of people that come together to argue and to come to a decision, to a group of people that agree on what the corporate identity should be.

If a corporation’s identity is something that you’re a part of, you’ll need to understand how your role fits into the process. Every corporate identity process is different, but generally corporate identity committees come together and begin by developing an identity framework. These frameworks help define the elements of the corporate identity and the principles that it should follow. The identity framework should define the following elements:

• company name
• namespace
• logo
• logo color
• logo size
• logo color guidelines
• logo dimensions
• logo motif
• logo skin color guidelines
• logo usage guidelines
• logo icon usage guidelines 

logo colour usage guidelines The first step in a corporate identity committee meeting is to set up a vocabulary for describing your company. This vocabulary should be used by members of the committee when they communicate and communicate with the rest of the organization.

A vocabulary is basically a vocabulary of words, phrases, or acronyms that are often used by members of an organization. The best way to establish a vocabulary is to ask yourself what you would consider the important elements for your company to use. Every company will have unique features that define what they do and should define the vocabulary that describes their unique corporate identity. The topics you should include in your vocabulary include:

• Company Name
• Type of Business (private, partnership, S Corp, etc)
• Existence Date
• Terms of Business
• Office Location
• Full Name of Owner
• Full Name of Principal Executive Officer
• Phone Number
• Franchise Agreement
• Office Address
• (State and/or Province)
• Pronunciation of Company Name
• Website Address
• Product Name (if applicable)
• Product Types
• Labels
• Source Code (if applicable)
• Made In
• Purchased
• Total Sales/Sales Profits (if applicable)
• Financial Statements
• Company Product Lines
• Acquisitions (if applicable)
• Trade Names 

If you need more specific guidelines on naming conventions, check out this blog post on How to Name Your Business Entity.

 

Some companies are much better than others at developing a corporate identity framework. An environment where an identity framework can be built is to have people working from within the company come up with a solution that matches the company’s vision, culture, mission, and values. Once the company develops a corporate identity framework, the next step is to plan how the corporate identity will be used in print, online, social media, or other media. As you build your corporate identity framework, you should make sure to include these elements: uses web or mobile

highlight services provided

highlight individuals or teams that are involved with providing those services

include your corporate brand (often referred to as company name) in all elements (it’s easy to forget to)

include the company’s reputation and “brand equity” (a fancy word for how important the company is to the success of the customer)

explain the relationship between the logo and company name

brief on product lines, technologies, and vendors to include in corporate identity

explain corporate values and core mission

assure your audience that the use of your corporate identity and logo is consistent with the company’s mission

start by defining the entity name. The name of your company should be short and memorable. Think of a term, phrase, or acronym that your company is associated with that can be easily recognized. In  domain name, the company name and corporate identity framework can also be used to create company logos. You should always name your company according to the current name of the company, but for trademark purposes, the company name will be the name that is most familiar to customers. For example, if you are buying domain names that use a particular company name, you would normally register those domains with the name that is most similar to your company name.

 

 Domain name information is typically sold through domain name registrars like GoDaddy.com. The obvious downside is that people will associate the word “GoDaddy” with your company name. To avoid this problem, you can register domains with descriptive names that do not associate the word “GoDaddy” with your company name. The company’s website should explain the corporate identity as well as a description of your business, a mission statement, and a definition of the services you provide. You should describe the activities that the company is involved with, but then also tell about the individuals or teams that are involved with these activities.

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