More than 7 years’ jail for man who cheated insurance firm of around $1.9m

A claims assessor with Prudential Assurance Co Singapore cheated the firm of around $1.9 million in total by making multiple false claims over more than two years.

In what was described in court as “an egregious case of insurance fraud”, Charn Sze Choong, 38, was able to circumvent the company’s internal controls as its administrative staff acted on his instructions without the necessary verifications.

On Oct 22, he was sentenced to seven years and four months’ jail and a fine of $1,000. He had pleaded guilty to nine charges, including five counts of cheating involving more than $1.3 million.

A total of 17 other charges, including those linked to the remaining amount of money, were considered during sentencing.

Charn, a claims assessor at the insurance firm from 2017 to 2021, has made no restitution.

His accomplice, Benjamin Song Junde, 40, was sentenced to a year, six months and two weeks’ jail on Oct 3.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia said Charn’s responsibilities as a claims assessor included processing claims made by Prudential’s clients. Between December 2018 and February 2021, he used his knowledge of the firm’s internal controls and made false claims under insurance policies that did not belong to him.

As part of the ruse, Charn instructed Prudential’s administrative staff to add beneficiary bank accounts to insurance policies, claiming that such accounts belonged to policyholders. In reality, the bank accounts belonged to him and his acquaintances.

The prosecutor said: “Such requests would usually have to be supported by... documents such as bank statements. Upon receiving such requests, Prudential’s administrative staff were required to review the supporting documents in order to ensure that the beneficiary bank accounts belonged to (parties such as policyholders) before approving the addition of beneficiary bank accounts.”

But the unsuspecting administrative staff members complied with Charn’s instructions without verifying the supporting documentation.

After the beneficiary accounts were added, Charn entered the false claims in Prudential’s Life Asia claims management system, before reviewing and approving the claims to receive the ill-gotten gains.

The DPP told the court: “The accused channelled some of the monies into the bank accounts of his creditors to pay off his own gambling debts to them.”

Court documents stated that Song was one such creditor.

Song and Charn were friends from their national service days, and Song had acted as a “bookie” for Charn’s gambling activities. Charn would place online poker and soccer bets through Song. He would also settle his gambling winnings and debts with Song every week.

During the time Charn worked as a claims assessor, Song was insured by Prudential under five policies his own wife held. Charn was aware of this arrangement.

Charn later decided to commit cheating with Song. From June 24, 2019, Charn started entering fictitious outpatient insurance claims into Prudential’s Life Asia claims management system.

Charn would also approve the fictitious claims in the system in his capacity as a claims assessor.

As a result, Prudential was deceived into believing that the claims were legitimate, and the company then made payouts totalling around $1.9 million into various bank accounts. These included Charn’s own bank accounts and those linked to Song.

Song derived nearly $470,000 in personal gain from the offences linked to three of his cheating charges.

Court documents did not disclose how the offences came to light.

Charn had also admitted to one count of obstructing the course of justice by failing to surrender all of his mobile phones to the authorities when officers from the Commercial Affairs Department raided his home on March 24, 2021.

He surrendered to the officers a mobile phone even though it was not the device he usually used, described in court documents as the “primary phone”. During investigations, the officers realised that they did not have Charn’s primary phone with them.

This was because the phone they had in their possession contained a SIM card that was not linked to Charn’s main contact number. The officers were unable to recover the primary phone, the court heard.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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