No punching the air, just a sense of relief – broker leaders on ex-employee fraudster being jailed

“It was a relief that all of the work we put into that investigation had been listened to and worthwhile. It had been a massive toll on us as a business, and personally, and financially.”

These are the words of Adrian Best, operations director at Invicta Insurance Services, when reflecting on the moment that Price, 45, of Playstool Road, Sittingbourne, Kent was jailed for fraud.

“If he had got away with a suspended sentence or anything like that we would have come away absolutely gutted.”

Managing director Tigi Singhateh echoes: “When the judge in his summing up, which I thought was absolutely brilliant, said it was five years and three months it was a deep sense of relief.”

The way we went about it, the meetings with policyholders and various insurers, we actually came out of it more positive as a result … because we were taking action. The relationships we have with insurers now are so strong because of the trust they have put in us and how we have gone about it.

Invicta Insurance Services managing director Tigi Singhateh

Singhateh admits he didn’t think he would have been able to take it if a suspended sentence had been handed down: “There are still people out there suffering from it. It is weird and an uneven situation. Even though we are happy that something has happened to him it doesn’t take away the fact of all the stuff he has done to various people.”

Best adds: “There was no punching the air, it was only what he deserved.”

Scams

Fraudster Price was found guilty at Inner London Crown Court. His scams of misleading customers, falsifying documents and pocketing over £133,000 spanned homes, vehicles, and commercial property for individuals and businesses.

Singhateh had joined in October 2022 from NFU Mutual while Best had come on board a few months earlier in July from the Civil Service Insurance Society.

Price had been with the business since it was formed in 2010, and the pair had concerns about his behaviour almost as soon as they set foot through the door.

The bosses, who would eventually find frauds dating as far back as 2014, took him away from dealing with clients directly in November 2022. He was instead tasked with focusing on the outstanding debt cases the leaders had inherited.

By April 2023 Price’s excuses were wearing thin and he was running out of chances. But as the number of red flags mounted there was still no evidence of fraud.

Proof

With the situation coming to a head – “We were very much thinking we need to look into those cases ourselves and find out what is going on,” Best recalls – a phone call came in from Allianz’s LV General Insurance on 5 May 2023. The insurer wanted a Teams meeting but Price was not to be involved.

The brokers learned that LV had found a case of a motor insurance policy registered using the same address as another existing customer and that when Price had assured them nothing was amiss they were not satisfied.

“We got Leon straight in, sat him down. I said to him directly who is this client and what have you been doing?” Singhateh recounts.

The feeling had changed to concrete proof: “Straight away he admitted it. ‘I sold one cover note’.”

Price was instantly suspended, escorted from the office, his access to computers and the IT system was suspended and he was given seven days until his disciplinary hearing.

Dismissed

The MD’s belief was “if he has done one – he hasn’t just done the one” and the investigation ramped up.

Sure enough more cases came to light during the intervening seven days, were put to him in the disciplinary and he admitted them. Once again he was walked out of the building, this time dismissed.

Best points out that Price left without giving any information on anyone else out there uninsured in whatever line of business: “When he was dismissed he left us saying I have told you about everything but we didn’t trust that.”

The first actions were to call Sevenoaks Police, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Police

LV, which Singhateh describes as “brilliant”, also put the broker in touch with the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department. In the first visit from IFED the Invicta chiefs vowed to see the situation through to the very end.

“As a company we were very determined to make sure that if someone steals from our customers they pay the penalty. They can’t do that,” Singhateh explains.

“You have no clients you have no business. We needed to safeguard our clients moving forward.”

Arrested

Price was arrested and interviewed on 13 June 2023 opting to make no comment to all questions that were put to him.

It was to turn out there were many levels to Price’s frauds. He was creating various different insurers’ policy documentation by copying old documents and putting logos on.

He would place business, then cancel it in the cooling off period keeping the money.

Price moved privately owned vehicles onto trade policies without the knowledge or consent of policyholders. The list of wrong-doing included making claims and routing the payments into his own account.

It meant while there were some frauds that could be found on Invicta’s systems, not all were logged.

“[People] were continuing to be at risk in that vulnerable [uninsured] position and we had no way of knowing who they were. That is when we worked with the Police, LV and everything else.”

Forensic investigation

After his arrest the Police were able to go through Price’s phone and bank records, meaning cases could be tracked back and found.

The process involved forensic investigation going over years’ worth of emails, transactions and system notes.

Singhateh acknowledges before his and Best’s arrival the broker’s systems were “poor” – they had a server which still used data tapes – and the information put on it was “sparse”. It was a case of “trying to claw back information”.

Finding the proof was a slow process from June 2023 onwards, but all the insurers – nine in total – were “really helpful”, he maintains.

“It was constant meetings,” he says. “They asked a number of questions. It was very much let’s share this information and get to where we want to get to.”

Client visits

The broker leaders always expected that there would be an 18-month window for cases to be spotted with unlogged ‘clients’ calling in for renewals and the firm discovering there were no documents.

For the period both bosses effectively had two jobs but Singhateh is clear where the focus lay: “The first year, even though as a business we had growth, the mindset was completely off that. What we wanted to do was safeguard the clients.”

This involved going out to meet the defrauded clients and explain the situation to them.

His sympathy clearly lies with these people who never did anything wrong. “People were crying because their business has been uninsured and [due to] a number of things,” he remembers.

“I did six direct visits. The worst one was the riding school for the disabled and children. They were never insured, thank God [there was never] a claim.”

Heart

Along with the explanations he told each and every one “we are really sorry, I will work my heart out to get this right for you”.

With its equine division the broker was able to find cover, and indeed did so for all the affected clients.

All in all there was thousands of hours of work across making the situation right for clients and pursuing the court case.

By the back end of 2024, the case was formed – nine frauds ultimately made it to court – and ready to push forward.

Price entered a guilty plea on 27 August 2025 meaning the trial date vacated, and sentence fixed for 20 November 2025.

Compliance

It has all been a steep introduction to running a firm.

Both were new to the SMF regime. “You get your directorship and SMF for the first time and then you get hit with this. You couldn’t make it up,” Singhateh reflects.

Even before the frauds came to light the business had started down the path of stricter compliance. “We had started the process,” Best confirms. The pair have joint ownership of compliance and get support from Broker Network.

All phone calls are recorded, both in the office and on mobiles via an app. The computer system is cloud based and resilient, and section managers can look at team emails which was not possible before.

“We have a whistleblowing [system] which everyone buys into,” Best says. “There is no segregation of clients and it is a very transparent way of working.”

Audits

Audits have also been to the fore.

“[Our] first compliance audit gave us a score of 8%, [our most] recent [was] 94%,” Singhateh shares. “We have a consistent compliance regime where people understand and know what they can and can’t do.”

And likewise insurer audits have been prominent too. Throughout the legal tumult Invicta was “very honest” with its suppliers, he stresses, telling them as much as possible and the plans moving forward.

“We wanted a business we could be proud of,” he sums up.

Transparency

Best backs up that there was transparency from “day one”, no matter whether it is measured from starting at the business or the start of the fraud investigations.

“It wasn’t us and we wanted to demonstrate we are doing the right thing and building this business,” he analyses.

“The way we went about it, the meetings with policyholders and various insurers, we actually came out of it more positive as a result … because we were taking action.

“The relationships we have with insurers now are so strong because of the trust they have put in us and how we have gone about it.”

Singhateh points to the fact that Ageas, which was not an insurer that partnered with the broker, has come on board more recently.

Right thing

While not an experience either would have sought, both take the positives from the outcome which they believe has created an environment where people want to work with the business.

“The learning point is that by doing the right thing and working with insurers we came out of it in a positive light,” Best concludes.

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