SINGAPORE: After successfully inflating the cost of her damaged luggage in an insurance claim, a woman embarked on a series of fraudulent travel claims totalling more than S$14,000.

Siti Saliha Muhammad Hussain, 30, used photos of damaged goods, receipts, boarding passes and police reports that she found online, and altered some of these with Paint and Microsoft Word applications to support her claims.

On Friday (Jul 29) she pleaded guilty to six charges of cheating, with 14 more charges taken into consideration. She made a total of 20 fraudulent claims between March 2016 and September 2019, of which 17 resulted in payouts.

The companies that fell victim to her scheme were AXA Insurance, AIG Asia Pacific Insurance, NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative, Aviva and FWD Singapore.

Siti Saliha was sentenced to five months' jail and will start serving her sentence in September, after being granted a deferment to settle her work and a loan she took out to make full restitution to the insurers.

FAKE CLAIM FOR DAMAGED LUGGAGE

The court heard that in September 2016, Siti Saliha made a trip to Kuala Lumpur with her mother and two sisters. She bought travel insurance policies from AXA and AIG for her family.

During the trip, the family's luggage, which was worth about S$200, was damaged while being retrieved from the airport's baggage claim.

Siti Saliha recalled that earlier in the year, she was able to inflate the cost of damaged luggage in an insurance claim without providing any...

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