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Did Somebody See It? Applying the Verifiability Approach to Insurance Claim Interviews

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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>10/2014
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling
Issue number3
Volume11
Number of pages7
Pages (from-to)237-243
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date26/05/14
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

We examined the application of the verifiability approach to insurance claim interviews. The verifiability approach states that truth tellers and liars differ from each other in terms of the number of details they give that can be verified. Eighty-three true and false insurance claim statements, related to damage, theft, or loss, were coded in terms of witnesses' (was the incident witnessed by others) and verifiability' (the number of perceptual and contextual details provided that could be checked by the investigator). We found that the majority of liars, compared with half the truth tellers, described unwitnessed incidents. This difference between the groups allowed for the detection of liars only. Discrimination between liars and truth tellers based on the verifiability of details was not possible. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.