Malawi insurance company saved from bogus K85m claims

Mbeya Private Investigators, emerging giants in investigating criminal and civil cases, foiled a move by a syndicate to defraud Prime Insurance Company, their client, millions of kwacha through bogus insurance cover claims, Nyasa Times has established.

Both Mbeya Private Investigators Managing Director Golden Mbeya and Prime Insurance Chief Operations Officer Gabriel Kamanga confirmed the development in separate interviews.

Kamanga, particularly, is happy over the busting of the sinister move, noting that it would have plunged his company in deep financial loss.

“We have lost some money before through such trickster maneuvers. It is high time the perpetrators are exposed and brought to justice,” he said.

The mischief began when a Nissan registration number KA 8089 belonging to Keneth Ndovi was involved in fatal accident on 13 December 2017 at Chakulamba along the Kasungu-Lilongwe M1 road.

Out of the 17 passengers aboard the minibus, four died while the rest got injured.

Information Nyasatimes sourced, show that on the date of the accident Ndovi’s car had no insurance cover.

Suspicious

On 16 March 2018, Prime Insurance Company received a claim of compensation from one of the victims of the accident Mercy Panje through her lawyers Robert and George.

According to Kamanga, Ndovi’s Minibus did not appear in Prime Insurance’s system when the company’s Claims Department vetted Panje’s claim to register it.

That was despite a police report indicating that the vehicle had “insurance cover” on the day of the accident.

“We were filled with suspicion which made us conclude that an investigation was inevitable to establish what was wrong,” confessed Kamanga.

He disclosed that if Prime Insurance was found liable to compensate Panje, the death of the four passengers and the 12 other victims, assuming all of them claimed, the company would have paid out an aggregate of five million kwacha to each one of them, losing 85 million kwacha.

Syndicate busted

Desperate to uncover the truth, Prime Insurance Company sought services of Mbeya Private Investigators.

A letter dated 20 March signed by the company’s Claims Manager Chiletso Matambo asked Mbeya Private Investigators to ascertain, among others, the following things;

If indeed the said accident happened, if the said victims/claimants were involved in the accident or not, the “insurance” was not showing in Prime Insurance’s system and if the said “insurance” was purchased on 12 December 2017 and the accident happened on 13 December.

The investigator discovered that the “insurance” that was purported to have covered Ndovi’s minibus on the date of the accident was actually backdated to 12 December.

David Wakisa, an employee of Prime Insurance’s agent, Coconut Insurance, connived with Ndovi to backdate the insurance.

“The two did that to defraud Prime Insurance, apparently because the owner of the car was running away from the responsibility of compensating the victims if they came to him,” said Kamanga.

Wakisa and Ndovi committed the mischief on 14 December.

According to Kamanga, backdating is getting insurance cover when one had no cover at the time of an accident.

“By law, one is required to obtain insurance cover upfront, before an accident or any eventuality,” he informed.

Action, way forward

“Wakisa and Ndovi’s behavior leads to loss of business for insurance companies because we make loses and end up raising our premiums which scares away our customers,” Kamanga observed.

He said Prime Insurance presented Mbeya Private Investigators findings to Fiscal Police who acted swiftly by arresting Wakisa last week.

It is alleged that at the time of Wakisa’s arrest, Ndovi was out of the country and could not be arrested.

He may be back in Malawi this time around and probably, the police is making moves to arrest him as well.

Wakisa is now reportedly on bail.

Efforts to enquire from the police about Ndovi, the charge that has been levelled against Wakisa and the status of the case, proved futile as National Police Spokesperson James Kadazera did not respond to questions posed to him by Nyasatimes.

However, Kamanga thinks there should be more arrests because he suspects there are more people involved in this syndicate and must be brought to book.

For instance, Kamanga concludes by asking this sensible and pertinent question.

“Why did the police report say the minibus had insurance cover when, in fact, it did not have on the day of the accident when the law enforcers visited the car to establish its particulars?” he wondered.

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