Leading legal business DWF has invested in its award-winning national counter fraud team with two senior hires as it continues to tackle fraudulent activity and enhance its fraud intelligence capability. Jacky Cattini joins as the new Head of Financial Risk from HSBC, where she was global fraud prevention manager, and Linda Avan joins as an intelligence consultant from Liberty Insurance, where she worked as a specialist investigator.
As Head of Financial Risk, Jacky brings significant experience handling finance fraud and developing strategic solutions to fighting fraud. Jacky’s remit at HSBC was to devise and develop the global fraud prevention strategy, prior to which she was the Associate Director of Group Fraud Risk Management at Barclays and formerly the Head of Analytics at the Insurance Fraud Bureau. Her extensive expertise includes identifying trends and fraud patterns, complementing DWF’steam which leverages innovative intelligence and predictive analytics systems to identify fraud trends and help insurer clients maximise efficiency.
Linda has 20 years’ experience working with insurers and specialises in identifying and gathering intelligence on complex, organised fraud rings, from initial detection to reporting for enforcement and providing evidence in court. Before joining Liberty Insurance, Linda was a Senior Case Manager at the Cotswold Group and Technical Claims Consultant at Aviva.
DWF’s counter fraud team works with clients to develop intelligent, data-led anti-fraud strategies using an innovative toolkit that combines predictive analytics with market intelligence which enables the firm’s insurer clients to spot trends and behaviours, pre-empting fraudulent activity and allowing them to focus on the ‘right’ cases. The new hires will be developing DWF’s capability in leveraging the firm’s tech-driven fraud initiatives in order to tackle organised fraud and financial crime.
Paul Berry, CEO of Insurance Services at DWF, says: “DWF’s national fraud team is fast becoming one of the UK’s strongest due to the truly market-leading telematics and predictive analytics systems we leverage to prevent insurance fraud. We continue to invest in the growing team to diversify our expertise across the insurance and commercial sectors for clients impacted by fraud in order to meet increasing demand.”
DWF’s National Head of Counter Fraud, Lorraine Carolan, comments: “The appointments of both Jacky and Linda are reflective ofour strategic intent to combat fraud, which is pervasive across our insurance and commercial sectors. DWF looks to do things differently and is diversifying its Counter Fraud services traditionally within the insurance sector to the benefit of the firm’s clients. Jacky’s finance background will enable better working across the financial services and commercial sectors to tackle the fraud risks that are inherent in their business and Linda’s experience as a well-known industry figure combined with our award-winning predictive analytics and profiling consultancy teams puts DWF in a very strong position to work closely with our insurance and commercial sector clients in combating the ever present threat of fraud.”
DWF has continued to invest in its nationwide capability, including the launch of a counter fraud team in Scotland following the appointment of partner Jill Sinclair, Head of Counter Fraud in Scotland, and solicitor Justine Reilly from DAC Beachcroft as well as the appointment of partner Miles Hepworth joining the team in Birmingham, also from DAC Beachcroft. The team has been widely recognised in both the insurance and legal industries for the value the firm is providing to its national and international clients through its tech-driven counter fraud initiatives, including recently winning the Data Analytics Excellence Award at this year’s Insurance Times tech & Innovation Awards.