A West Sussex-based company which specialises in detecting insurance fraud has identified the CDs people are most likely to lie about owning.

Absolute Customer Management, which uses psychology to detect fraudulent insurance claims, said insurance companies had known for years that motorists often inflated the value of their claims for stolen or burnt-out cars by making up possessions they claim were lost with the vehicle.

It said one of the most common things people claimed to have lost was a non-existent CD collection, which they usually say was in the glove compartment.

But the East Grinstead-based group has now identified the six CDs that are most commonly made up by dishonest claimants.

These are albums by Kylie Minogue, Westlife, Bryan Adams and Robbie Williams, as well as a Best of the 80s compilation, or something similar, and the latest dance compilation.

Absolute uses a technique known as cognitive interviewing which identifies if people are lying through the way they describe what happened to their vehicle and the words and phrases they use.

It also looks for strong emotions, and whether the emotions people display are consistent with those normally displayed by people who have lost their car.

Bill Trueman, a director of Absolute, said: "While we know some genuine claimants will really have lost these CDs in their collections, our team has learned that these are the ones that fraudsters make up time and time again when they're put on the spot.

"We can only assume that most fraudsters aren't very original."

The group handles around 400 insurance claims a month which are thought to carry a risk of being fraudulent on behalf of 15 insurers.

It identifies around 30% of claims as being either potentially fraudulent or deceptive.

Tuesday July 20, 2004