We get asked all the time, why do insurance brokers need to use ValidID?

All firms need to be aware of the potential risk for money laundering within their business. Those that fail to recognise this risk, not only leave themselves open to being used by criminals, but also leave themselves wide open to regulatory scrutiny for not having appropriate risk based controls to limit the ability of a criminal to use your company to move illicit monies.

So when do you need to consider enhanced due diligence?

Whilst it is no hard and fast rule, and at the end of the day it is only our opinion, but we would suggest one of three events should definitely be considered a trigger point for enhanced due diligence such as ValidID:

1. If you are suspicious.
   
   Never underestimate this one, if the authorities ever find a case where money laundering has taken place and they feel you should have been suspicious and you weren’t you are potentially liable. So ensure you monitor all transactions within your business and if you feel even remotely uneasy do some checks.
   
   
2. In the event of a claim.
   
   Remember when you make a payment to someone you could be unwittingly laundering money, whilst 99.99% of all transactions will be perfectly innocuous and innocent you can’t be too careful.
    
3. In the event of a cancelation that results in a refund of premiums.
   
   For the same reason as above you may be making a payment out to someone so it pays to be careful.