Ex-RSA employee handed jail sentence for £280,000 insurance fraud

An ex-RSA employee has been sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment for making 82 fraudulent claim payments into his accomplice’s bank account worth almost £280,000.

Kevin Macey, 49, of Fareham was convicted of one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of money laundering.

Macey worked as a personal claims specialist at RSA and colluded with Debbie Starkings, 57, of Portsmouth to make false claims against a contents and building insurance policy that she held with the insurer. An investigation by the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) found they worked together to make 82 fraudulent payments into the woman’s bank account.

Macey had helped Starkings make five claims over two years which amounted to over £200,000. Macey then started to make false claims against other people’s policies and then would send the money for those claims to Starkings bank account. Overall, he had processed fraudulent claims for Starkings which amounted to £279,641 over a four-year period between early 2012 and July 2016.

Starkings was sentenced to two years imprisonment (suspended for two years) and a 20-day community order, for one count of theft and one count of money laundering.

Internal controls highlighted anomalies with Macey’s handling of a number of claims after which RSA opened an internal investigation. The insurance company found that one bank account had received a number of significant payments and the system helped trace names and others claims associated with that account number. RSA referred the case to IFED and a full criminal investigation was undertaken.

City of London Police’s financial investigator, Simon Styles, who led the investigation for the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department said: “Macey abused the position he had been put in by RSA and took complete advantage of his customers, using their details to help him collude with Starkings.

“Starkings was equally complicit in this fraud and her greed meant she went on to submit multiple false claims.

“The sentencing goes to show that it is not possible to get away with this crime and that we will do everything we can to work with the insurance industry to ensure fraudsters are caught and made to pay.”

John Beadle, the head of financial crime and counter fraud at RSA said: “RSA have a zero-tolerance attitude towards any dishonesty involving our staff.  Once internal controls highlighted the activities of Macey and Starkings, we had no hesitation in reporting the matter to IFED in order that both could be brought to justice.”

Mark Dugdale