Entity verification and legitimacy: NICB needed to determine whether businesses submitting insurance claims were legitimately registered entities. As Ian Laughlin, their Director of Data Sciences, explained: “One of the things that we’re trying to do is identify if a business exists. Because if a business is not registered, if we can’t find them in the registration data, they’re probably operating illegitimately… at best, they’re committing some form of tax fraud, which isn’t our purview, but the insurance fraud is, we found a pretty tight linkage between people who are not registered, and who are committing insurance fraud.”

Complex fraud schemes and network analysis: NICB discovered sophisticated fraud patterns where multiple businesses operated from the same address under different names. Ian described a common scenario: “Particularly with towing companies, we’ve seen schemes where they run seven businesses out of the same address that are all owned by different family members, and they all trace back to the same business entity address because they’re all being registered the same way with the same registered agent.”

Data quality and entity resolution: NICB often struggles with poor quality third-party data from some of its member companies. Ian candidly acknowledged: “Yeah, it’s shockingly hard to put a lot of these things together. A lot of it admittedly comes down to the fact that our data quality varies greatly; it’s all user entered data. There’s often little validation on what is done at the time of entry by some companies.”

Jurisdictional transparency gaps: Different states provided vastly different levels of data transparency, making it difficult to detect fraud consistently across jurisdictions. This variability hinders NICB’s ability to protect consumers and advocate for policy changes.

NICB implemented OpenCorporates’ bulk data, gaining access to comprehensive legal entity information from registries across all North American jurisdictions. The implementation focused on several key use cases:

Entity verification and fraud detection: NICB integrated OpenCorporates data into their systems to verify whether businesses in their claims data were legitimately registered entities. This capability allowed them to flag potentially fraudulent claims from unregistered or suspicious entities.

Network analysis and relationship mapping: Using data on addresses, registered agents, and officer information, NICB could identify networks of related entities that might be part of fraud schemes. The data enabled link analysis to uncover connections between seemingly separate businesses.

Name change tracking: One particularly valuable feature was OpenCorporates’ capture of previous company names. Ian highlighted this benefit: “If one had registered as Acme Law and changed it to Acme Law PLC, that’s a minor name change, which is good. But a major change is like Acme Ambulance Services changing their name to Happy Valley Ambulance… if we had them in the previous names field then we can say, hey, this entity might be trying to avoid whatever flags are on their old name. We’ll just transfer them over to the new name.”

Data quality improvement: OpenCorporates helped NICB identify and address data quality issues in their member companies’ submissions, enabling them to provide feedback on improving data collection practices.

Measurable results and KPI improvements

Enhanced fraud detection capability: NICB established a direct correlation between business registration status and fraud. This insight enabled them to prioritize investigations and flag high-risk claims more effectively.

Improved entity resolution and match rates: Through their pilot testing with OpenCorporates, NICB gained insights into match rate performance and data quality factors. The analysis revealed that match rates varied significantly based on jurisdiction transparency and data quality, with OpenCorporates providing guidance on data cleansing approaches to improve automated matching.

Name change tracking for fraud prevention: The ability to track company name changes provided immediate value in preventing fraud schemes where entities attempt to evade detection by changing names. This feature enabled NICB to maintain continuity in their fraud flags and investigations across entity name changes.

Policy impact: NICB can now quantify the impact of registry transparency on fraud detection. Ian explained their strategic goal: “I really do believe in open data. It’s very frustrating to not have sufficient access to open data… if I can quantify how it affects our ability, it makes for a much stronger argument for everybody. Especially when we can say, hey, here in California because of the transparency policies, we are able to detect $100,000,000 worth of fraudulent transactions.”

This capability positions NICB to advocate for policy changes with state legislators, demonstrating how lack of transparency directly impacts insurance fraud costs and consumer premiums.

Strategic value and future impact

Beyond immediate operational improvements, the OpenCorporates partnership provides NICB with strategic capabilities:

Policy advocacy: NICB can now demonstrate to legislators the concrete cost of opaque registries. As Ian noted: “It becomes very beneficial to the story for our strategy policy and government affairs, to tell the legislators in that state you are seeing an extra 30 percent premium cost because of your lack of corporate transparency policies and how that lack of transparency enables insurance fraud.”

Comprehensive coverage: With access to data from all North American jurisdictions, NICB gained a complete view of the legal entity landscape, enabling more thorough investigations and fraud detection.

Future-ready infrastructure: As NICB continues to develop their KPIs and measurement frameworks, OpenCorporates data provides the foundation for quantifying fraud detection improvements and demonstrating ROI to member organizations.

Key takeaways

Legal entity data is fundamental to fraud detection: Verifying business legitimacy through authoritative registry data proved essential for identifying fraudulent insurance claims and protecting consumers.

Data transparency drives measurable outcomes: The ability to quantify fraud detection differences across jurisdictions with varying transparency levels provides powerful evidence for policy advocacy and regulatory improvement.

Historical data prevents fraud evasion: Tracking company name changes and maintaining historical records prevents fraudsters from evading detection by simply changing entity names.

Comprehensive coverage matters: Access to data across all jurisdictions eliminates blind spots and enables thorough investigation of multi-state fraud schemes.

Open data creates societal value: Beyond individual organizational benefits, comprehensive legal entity data supports broader public good initiatives in fraud prevention and consumer protection.

The NICB partnership demonstrates how OpenCorporates’ comprehensive legal entity data drives measurable improvements in fraud detection, operational efficiency, and strategic policy impact for organizations committed to protecting consumers and combating financial crime.