BRITAIN'S biggest mortgage lender intends to use lie detectors in an attempt to detect fraudulent insurance claims.

HBOS says it is the first insurer to use voice stress analysis technology to try to detect if people are lying when lodging claims under household insurance policies.

The group, which is made up of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, plans to begin using the technology next month for a three month trial period.

An HBOS spokesman said: "Policyholders with honest claims have nothing to fear from it."

The technology will only be used on a few hundred HBOS claimants to see how effective it is, and customers will be informed if they are part of the trial.

The group already uses a range of techniques to detect fraud, including sharing information with other groups to see if more than one claim has been submitted, looking at people's claims history and checking claims for weather damage against Met Office data.

The voice stress technology is already used by other firms assessing motor insurance claims.

Fraud on motor and household insurance costs the industry more than £1bn a year. Lloyd's of London syndicate Highway Insurance has been using voice stress analysis technology to detect fraud on motor insurance claims for more than a year.

The group uses the technology with narrative integrity analysis, which looks for inconsistencies in people's accounts of what happened and speech patterns such as taking long pauses before answering questions.

Kerry Furber, fraud reduction management consultant for Highway Insurance, said before the firm started using the technology about five per cent of claims were turned down because they were either suspected of being fraudulent or the claimant was not covered under the terms of the policy.

Since the company started using the technology the figure had more than tripled to 18 per cent.

Malcolm Tarling, of the Association of British Insurers, said: "The use of voice stress detection systems is not something which is commonplace within the industry.

"Individual companies are currently looking for ways to weed out fraudsters, and using up-to-date technology is part of a range of fraud detection methods.

"The majority of claims are genuine and insurers want to devote more resources to dealing with these."