Santam to use Clickatell for text fraud alerts

By Gabrielle Kalika

June 24, 2008

Mobile messaging provider Clickatell and South African short-term insurer Santam have teamed up to deliver a fraud reporting channel using SMS text alerts for claims processing.

Using Clickatell’s mobile platform, Santam now allows South African consumers to inform on fraud tip-offs by texting mobile short code 31640. This service is designed to reduce the probability of fraudulent or false claims being paid out by allowing consumers to instantly alert Santam of any suspicious activity.

“Clickatell's strategy is to work with leading enterprise organizations across many verticals - financial services, governments, healthcare, social communities - and horizontals - CRM, IT, ticketing - to text-enable a multitude of applications in order to save money, reach customers, enable communities and much, much more,” said Chuck Drake, executive vice president of marketing for Clickatell, Redwood City, CA.

“Santam wants to continue its leadership position by providing a free text-based insurance fraud tip line in order to reduce fraud and save customers time and hassles," he said.

"The use of SMS text gives Santam the ability to provide a 24x7 real-time tip line so that people can text anything about an accident, giving the agents more information about specific claims.”

When consumers send a text to the short code, they receive an SMS asking the basic questions - who, what, where, when, how - when providing information on what they have seen. All reports are treated confidentially unless the customer is willing to be contacted.

Santam and Clickatell’s text-based alert service also works to enhance the insurer's corporate call center. Live customer-agent interaction costs nearly $5 to $9 per call. With SMS messaging, customers are contacted more effectively and at a lower cost.

Santam claims to be the leading short-term insurer in South Africa. The company focuses on the corporate, commercial and personal markets and optimizing the broker network as the main delivery channel.

Founded in 2000, Clickatell is a mobile communications products and service provider for enterprises of various sizes and markets. The company serves an estimated 8,000 customers in 700 networks across nearly 200 countries.

Clickatell clients include Barclays Bank, BBC, Continental Airlines, CNN, Metropolitan Life, Oracle and Shell. The company also has offices in South Africa and Britain.

“Insurance fraud is a major issue across the globe,” Mr. Drake said. “Billions of dollars are paid out to those who don't have a reputable claim, while reputable claims may take longer to pay out due to the investigations that need to occur."