A routine review of a motor accident claim in Assam has resulted in a Special Investigation Team concluding that an insured vehicle was allegedly inserted into an old road accident case in an attempt to obtain compensation from ICICI Lombard.
The case dates to 2015, when an alleged collision between a motorcycle and a bicycle occurred in Bongaigaon district. ICICI Lombard said it identified discrepancies in documents related to the accident and initiated a review. Records obtained through the Right to Information Act revealed that the vehicle registration number in the original Police General Diary Entry differed from the number cited in the subsequent insurance claim.
Based on those findings, ICICI Lombard approached the Guwahati High Court, which referred the matter to Assam's SIT - a body constituted pursuant to Supreme Court directions in the case of Safiq Ahmad vs ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd.
The SIT's investigation found further inconsistencies: the registration number in the original General Diary Entry also differed from the one recorded in the First Information Report filed later. The team concluded that the insured motorcycle had allegedly been implanted into the accident case after the fact in order to make a compensation claim against the policy.
The case illustrates the verification challenges insurers face in motor claims, where investigations typically require cross-referencing police records, accident documentation and vehicle registration details across multiple government databases. Discrepancies of the kind identified here can be difficult to detect without targeted document reviews - and the RTI mechanism, which gave ICICI Lombard access to the original General Diary Entry, is emerging as a practical investigative tool for insurers pursuing anomalies in historical claims documentation.
ICICI Lombard said it continues to improve its claims verification processes through data analytics, field investigations and internal controls. The insurer did not disclose the value of the compensation sought in the alleged fraud attempt.
