Jail for woman who made fake travel insurance claims of more than S$14,000

SINGAPORE: Right after successfully inflating the value of her harmed baggage in an insurance claim, a lady embarked on a series of fraudulent vacation statements totalling a lot more than S$14,000.

Siti Saliha Muhammad Hussain, 30, applied images of destroyed products, receipts, boarding passes and law enforcement reviews that she observed on the internet, and altered some of these with Paint and Microsoft Term programs to support her statements.

On Friday (Jul 29) she pleaded responsible to 6 prices of cheating, with 14 additional fees taken into thing to consider. She created a overall of 20 fraudulent claims in between March 2016 and September 2019, of which 17 resulted in payouts.

The firms that fell sufferer to her scheme were AXA Insurance plan, AIG Asia Pacific Insurance policies, NTUC Cash flow Insurance plan Co-operative, Aviva and FWD Singapore.

Siti Saliha was sentenced to five months’ jail and will begin serving her sentence in September, following remaining granted a deferment to settle her do the job and a loan she took out to make whole restitution to the insurers.

Phony Declare FOR Harmed Luggage

The court docket read that in September 2016, Siti Saliha made a journey to Kuala Lumpur with her mother and two sisters. She purchased journey insurance guidelines from AXA and AIG for her spouse and children.

In the course of the vacation, the family’s baggage, which was truly worth about S$200, was destroyed while being retrieved from the airport’s baggage assert.

Siti Saliha recalled that earlier in the year, she was ready to inflate the price tag of damaged luggage in an insurance policy declare without offering any supporting receipts.

She experienced also been equipped to make a independent insurance policies claim for a piece of baggage even though it was harmed right before the journey.

“The accused felt that this was an additional option to exploit the slack checks and balances in location for travel insurance policies claims, and intended to do so without the need of her family’s information,” reported Deputy General public Prosecutor Angela Ang.

She went on the internet and discovered photos of a weakened Louis Vuitton luggage and receipt, as properly as a receipt for Tumi luggage, which she intended to use to inflate the value of her destroyed baggage.

She made use of these files to submit promises underneath her individual and her mother’s and sisters’ insurance plan insurance policies. AXA and AIG disbursed a complete of S$750 and S$1,000 respectively for the four phony promises.

Having “tested the program”, Siti Saliha determined to make faux travel insurance coverage statements anytime possible by guaranteeing that she bought guidelines for herself and her spouse and children just before any outings, reported Ms Ang.

She would often also acquire travel insurance policy policies for the sole reason of generating a fake claim, despite there remaining no journey planned.

DOCTORED Law enforcement REPORT, BOARDING Go

Although on a excursion to Tokyo in April 2017, Siti Saliha unintentionally misplaced her wallet made up of about S$5,000 and her Iphone. As her plan did not cover decline from own negligence, she made a bogus law enforcement report in Tokyo that her possessions have been stolen.

She applied the law enforcement report in a bogus claim to AXA. To get around a cap on the payout she could get, she also claimed that her notebook was stolen, which was not accurate. The insurance company compensated out S$2,288 to her.

Later that year, Siti Saliha assisted just one of her sisters invest in travel insurance plan for a vacation to Krabi, and retrieved her sister’s employed boarding go after she returned.

Siti Saliha then identified samples of adjusting studies and home irregularity experiences online, and amended them on her laptop or computer to make reference to her sister’s laptop computer and luggage.

She also uncovered outdated receipts for a notebook and luggage, and searched on the internet for pictures of damaged merchandise. She submitted these to MSIG jointly with her sister’s boarding move, and obtained a payout of S$1,500.

Sometime before February 2019, Siti Saliha also acquired her mom a plan for an alleged journey to Pekanbaru. In truth, her mother had no this kind of journey prepared and the coverage was acquired to make a fake assert.

She produced a bogus assert that her mom was robbed of S$600 in hard cash and her Apple iphone, attaching a doctored sample law enforcement report and a doctored image of a boarding go that she identified on the web. She received S$1,415 from AXA for this.

She repeated this right after her mom travelled to Jakarta in March 2019 and soon after her individual excursion to Kuala Lumpur in April 2019, claiming that possessions were stolen and publishing doctored law enforcement experiences when this was untrue.

She also volunteered to invest in journey insurance policy for a close friend with whom she was travelling to Kuala Lumpur in July 2019. She did so intending to make phony claims for a theft on their return, and received a payout of almost S$1,500 from AIG.

The offences were being uncovered after some of the coverage organizations located Siti Saliha’s claims suspicious and carried out interior investigations. They then submitted police stories in opposition to her.

“Actually Fairly IRONIC”

The prosecution sought 5 to seven months’ jail, highlighting the lengths that Siti Saliha went to, such as opening diverse email accounts to buy the policies with out arousing suspicion.

Defence counsel Yamuna Balakrishnan questioned for a good on the foundation that her consumer arrived from a poor economic history and was the only man or woman providing for her spouse and children users, some of whom were being sick and not performing.

Deputy Presiding District Judge Luke Tan reported it was “seriously very ironic” that Siti Saliha highlighted dire economic conditions in her mitigation when her offences arose from overseas vacation.

He mentioned there was “certainly no foundation” not to impose a jail term, which was supported by the scenario law.

The punishment for dishonest is jail for up three many years, a great or equally.