Seven employees of Nile Insurance Company’s head office are being investigated by the Nifas Silke Lafto Sub- City Police after 47,000 birr went missing from their Abyssinia Bank account in an attempt to forge claim payments.
There are five male and two female suspects. Two resigned after the incident which occurred two months ago, according to the company.
According to the police report, someone filed a false claim saying a car which was covered by Nile through third party insurance was involved in an accident near Wolisso town and a payment was made as a result. However when the company investigated the claim, they discovered that the car had not been in an accident and that the letter and ID used to withdraw the money was fake.
Benalf Mekonen, Resource Management Head at Nile Insurance told Capital that they are auditing all claims made in the past year.
“We are shocked by the news because we are a leading company in the private insurance business in Ethiopia. Normally claims under 50,000 birr are handled by the lower management. In this case we asked the insured party if their car had been in an accident and if they had filed a claim and they had no idea what we were talking about. So we became suspicious about our staff and police are investigating.”
“We are also dedicating a department to investigate all claims in the last year” he added.
Capital asked Hadush Hintsay, Secretary General of the Ethiopian Insurance Association about the incident. “I can’t comment on this news but the entire financial industry needs to work together to fight fraud.”
Nile was established on April, 1995 with a capital of birr 12.5 million. Over the past years, the company has grown from birr 12.5 million to 302 million birr capital, from 26 to 124 shareholders, from 4 to 42 branches both in the capital and regional cities and has more than 45,000 customers across the country. The total asset of the company has reached birr 734 million.