In the German insurance market, around one in ten claims is dubious. Many of these claims are completely fictitious or fabricated. Insurance fraud in general costs insurance companies billions every year. The inhibition threshold for insurance fraud decreases with every additional AI tool, making it even easier to manipulate digital damage images or freely generate claims.

VAARHAFT detects fake claims images directly in the claims handling process and supports insurance companies in detecting image-based insurance fraud. In the insurance market, where image-based insurance fraud is becoming an increasingly relevant issue, this solution is extremely relevant. In this way, VAARHAFT does not only save fraud costs for insurers, but also contributes to the continued secure automation of claims processes and savings in processing costs.

VAARHAFT has an excellent network in the German insurance market and offers special features and proprietary data sets developed specifically for this market. One example is the cross-insurance duplicate check or the marking of processed areas in the image.

How it works

Humans used to have to look at each claim image to find anomalies. Mostly, there is little time and limited accuracy to detect all the possible fraud cases efficiently. Sometimes, metadata analysis techniques or analytical algorithms are used to detect possible fraud cases, but with the new GenAI models, those methods won’t be enough. VAARHAFT pursues an innovative approach based on complex computer vision techniques and deep learning mechanisms. Thanks to its particularly fast development pipelines, VAARHAFT can respond to new image generators within 48 hours.

VAARHAFT checks the credibility of digital claim images in seconds to detect image-based insurance fraud. The special thing about VAARHAFT’s approach is that it provides a solution that is always state-of-the-art in terms of technology, meets GDPR requirements and its API is modular and individually configurable for each customer. If necessary, VAARHAFT adapts its deep-learning models quickly to the latest technological developments and is therefore always up to date. Its innovative approach means that it fights fraud through AI with AI (anti-AI).

Why we selected VAARHAFT for ITC DIA Europe

AI and GenAI in business are currently booming. But, GenAI is also increasingly being used in a fraudulent context; from deepfakes and identity fraud to manipulated evidence images and invoices. Digital images cannot be blindly trusted these days. This is where VAARHAFT steps in.

At ITC DIA Europe Amsterdam, Linus Kameni, CEO & Co-Founder at VAARHAFT presented its Fraud Scanner Solution to detect image-based fraud. He showed a live demo of its Web Interface, where images can be analysed manually regarding their credibility.

VAARHAFT has already won the Innovators Award of the InsureNXT in the category “Standalone Pioneer” and the Claims Rockstar Award of the Versicherungsforen Leipzig in Germany. At ITC DIA Europe Amsterdam, they took home an ITC DIAmond award for most strategic impact!

Who is VAARHAFT

VAARHAFT is an insurtech startup from Berlin (Germany), founded in 2023, that prevents image-based fraud while protecting the credibility of digital images and making them verifiable. The founding team consists of Linus Kameni (CEO), Paul Franken (CTO) & Anne Patzer (COO).

With his studies in aerospace engineering, with a strong focus on numerical optimisation and machine learning, Linus has a high-tech background, and already worked at Europe's biggest aircraft manufacturers and associated research institutions. He holds the strings together. Paul studied business informatics and has a lot of practical experience in programming and AI development. Code and neural networks are in his DNA.

Anne studied business administration and worked in different project management positions for software development companies. She has experience with the health insurance sector through her last job. VAARHAFT’s API is ready to sell to the markets. In June 2024, VAARHAFT starts with its first 3 paid pilot projects with different insurers. 7 more pilots are in the pipeline right now. VAARHAFT just closed its first financing round in May 2024, which helps them to reach product market fit and scale the product into different markets.

“VAARHAFT was born to protect the trustworthiness of digital media despite the rapid development of deepfake technologies. Our vision is a world in which the audiovisual credibility of digital media can be verified in real time.”

Founding Team VAARHAFT