Damian Rourke

Full Profile

With over 18 years' fraud experience, Damian is a well known and respected practitioner in the field. His work ranges from single policyholder frauds to complex, highly organised cross-insurer fraud rings.

He acts for a range of professional clients, from household name insurers, retailers and large-scale fleets to local authorities and self-insured publicly listed and private companies.

Damian contributes to industry debate and awareness through regular public speaking, workshops, published articles and involvement with industry groups; including being a member of the FOIL SFT.

He is responsible for the day-to-day management of various insurer client accounts, managing a dedicated team based in the Manchester office.

Damian is an experienced litigator and has advised various insurers with drafting of precedent repudiation documents for claims pre-issue and assisted in setting up/implementing initial claims validation strategies including KFI checklists.

Experience

• Developed our Project Martello strategy for dealing with exaggerated claims across all lines of business using fundamental dishonesty arguments – a strategy that has saved our insurer clients more than GBP 9m to date.
• Led a claim involving a fraud ring where we successfully brought committal proceedings for contempt of Court against an accident management company director – who was jailed as a result.
• Dealt with a number of fraud rings in the Liverpool and East London area for major insurers.
• Assisted IFED with providing evidence in relation to a large scale and complex fraud ring operation that led to the arrest and charging of the largest number of people in a single investigation.
• Assisted a large insurer in drafting and implementing a pilot repudiation strategy for motor claims throughout the UK.
• Successfully defended a GBP 650,000 claim arising from a road traffic accident – with the claim being dismissed on the grounds of fundamental dishonesty.
• Successfully brought the first private prosecution for a public liability claim – the claimant receiving a 21-month prison sentence for staging a tripping claim.
• Successfully brought the first action for contempt of Court against the director of an Accident Management company.