The man took out five health insurance policies and made false claims over five months
To increase the collective value of the claims, he added fictitious family members to the policy
The man created fraudulent compliment slips and receipts to substantiate his claim
A man who used fake details to make fraudulent dental and optical claims for himself and a fictitious wife and children has been sentenced.
Following an investigation by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, Harwinder Sangha, 47, of Bexhill-On-Sea, East Sussex, pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud by false representation.
On Friday 9th November 2018 he was sentenced at Hastings Crown Court to seven weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months. He was also given a drug rehabilitation order to be completed over six months, and compensation of £2,764 to be paid alongside court costs and victim surcharges.
IFED initially became aware of Sangha’s fraudulent activity due to a referral from Simply Health Insurance. After conducting an internal investigation, they discovered that between July 2016 and November 2016 Sangha had incepted five health insurance policies using fake details and made numerous claims for dental and optical purchases. They also identified a further claim of the same nature made by Sangha in 2010.
Simply Health Insurance then referred the case to IFED which progressed the investigation. It was revealed that as well as using fake details to take out the policies as policy holder, Sangha also used fictitious details to add a wife and children to the policies. He did this in order to make fraudulent claims on behalf of them and ultimately increase the collective value of the claims.
Only a few days or weeks after incepting each of the policies, Sangha would make a fraudulent claim for a mix of optical and dental purchases on behalf of himself and his fictitious family. To substantiate these claims, Sangha created fraudulent compliment slips and receipts and sent these to the insurer as proof of purchase.
Sangha was arrested in November 2017 and IFED conducted a search warrant at the address. They seized a bank statement which revealed that his bank account had been used to buy some of the policies. It was also discovered the several other bank accounts were used by Sangha to take out other policies and receive payments from his claims.
After this warrant, various telephone numbers were also identified as belonging Sangha, and he used these to incept the policies and also call the insurer to receive updates on how his claim was progressing.
In total, Sangha was paid out in three of the claims, amounting to £2,764, while the other three were rejected, amounting to £1,416.
City of London Police’s Detective Constable Jamie Kirk, who led the investigation for IFED, said:
“Sangha not only used fake details to make false health claims for himself, he also created fictitious family members to maximise the amount he could attempt to steal.
“With support from Simply Health Insurance, the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department managed to uncover the true extent of Sangha’s false claims, and he’s now been punished for his fraudulent activity.”