MIB Screens For Spies, Terrorists And Traffickers

By Staff Writer

June 05, 2002 at 08:00 PM

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NU Online News Service, June 5, 1:15 p.m. – The MIB Group Inc., Westwood, Mass., says it will be selling a two-part system for verifying whether insurance applicants are on special U.S. and Canadian watch lists.

The lists give the names of "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons," or individuals accused of being foreign agents, terrorists or narcotics traffickers.

The U.S. USA PATRIOT Act and similar Canadian laws prohibit insurers, reinsurers, agents, brokers and other financial services companies from doing business with the individuals on the lists.

One part of the MIB testing system will search company databases on a regular basis to ensure that customers who already have accounts are not on the watch lists.

Another part will check applications as they are entered into a company's databases, MIB says.

The system can check the names of claimants and beneficiaries as well as policy owners, and it can look for names that are similar to an applicant's name as well as names that are identical, MIB says.

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