Jacob acts for clients on complex and high-value insurance claims involving fraudulent activity including but not limited to staged incidents, exaggeration of claims and attempted suppression of policy defences. He also provides training to claims handlers on substantive law relating to fraud and investigation techniques when dealing with suspicious claims. Jacob has responsibility for:

• Screening insurance claims for potential fraud and other policy coverage and indemnity issues;
• Undertaking investigations and liaising with third parties including the police, specialist loss adjusters and experts;
• Advising clients on their fraud rights in respect of suspicious claims, and drafting correspondence to policyholders;
• Responding to any challenges through both the courts and Financial Ombudsman Service;
• Pursuing recoveries of sums paid out on fraudulent claims; and
• Developing and delivering training to specialist and general claims handlers on how to identify potential fraud.

In addition to the policy coverage and fraud matters, Jacob has considerable property damage and product liability experience in acting on subrogated recoveries and liability matters including defective design and construction, fire damage and the escapes of various insured perils on to neighbouring properties.

Jacob's experience includes:

• Acting for an insurer client in the reported case of Matthews v AXA Insurance UK Plc [2013], in which a claim before the High Court in the amount of £385,798 for failure to indemnify a party under an insurance contract was successfully struck out on the basis that the insurance policy in question had been avoided due to material misrepresentation/non-disclosure of a serious criminal offence for drug smuggling which had resulted in the imprisonment of claimant for over four years;
• Acting on a matter involving a policyholder who submitted a fraudulent claim for uninsured stock damaged in a flood incident, resulting in a prosecution and conviction for the company director who submitted the claim; and
• More recently, Jacob acted for an insurer client on the case of TKC (London) Ltd v Allianz Insurance Plc [2020] EWHC 2710, one of the first reported cases on Covid-19 business interruption claims, where the court ruled that temporary loss of use of premises as a result of the Government lockdown does not trigger cover under a standard BI policy.