Unemployment Insurance Integrity

SOLUTION BRIEF
UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE INTEGRITY
Protect your agency’s wallet and reputation by reducing improper UI payments.

Improper unemployment insurance payments not only drain
the government wallet, but also create huge reputational risk.
Yet in spite of these risks, the US Department of Labor’s
Improper UI Payments Heat Map reveals shocking loss figures
due to this widespread problem.
The Federal-State Unemployment Insurance program manages
near $50B in disbursements and has a recorded improper
payment rate hovering near 12% or $0.56B taxpayer dollars.
Figure 1: Government-Wide Improper Payment Targets, Office Management of
the Budget
According to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies’ Unemployment Insurance Integrity Assessment Report, 32 percent of
U.S. states/territories do not currently use fraud prevention or detection software. This leaves the door open for fraudulent activity and
underperformance, resulting in inefficient spending of taxpayer dollars on improper payments.
The challenge? Audits are lengthy, costly, and disruptive to operations, and public sector bodies remain challenged with not being able to
produce enough evidence to reduce concerns. Only a small amount of claims are thoroughly reviewed—often due to fear of slowing down the
payments process. And exception reports are retrospective, because traditionally that is all that has been available.
While there is considerable complexity in the administration of the UI program—the program is funded federally but disbursements are
made through the Department of Labor—technology can be applied to improve payment accuracy and provide better program integrity and
oversight, to significantly reduce the complexity in ferreting out fraud, waste and abuse.
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SOLUTION BRIEF
32%
of states do not use software/data analytics
for fraud prevention and detection*
57%
of states have not had a BPC business process
review in the last two years*
States answered that the three most important UI integrity issues currently that need to be addressed
at either the state or national level are*:



Identify theft
Staffing
Resources
THE ACL SOLUTION TO IMPROPER UI PAYMENTS
A data-driven, GRC solution with easy-to-configure workflow for collaboration with other functional units and service agencies can help
state departments better serve constituents by identifying and acting on any risk-related red flags in real-time. Get ahead of bad payments
by reviewing before paying. Analyze all claims (100%) for appropriateness and fraud. Review only the exceptions and focus on anomalies.
Reduce audit time and demonstrate to auditors that monitoring is in place.
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METHODOLOGY:
Using ACL software, easily correlate disparate data for indications of fraud, waste, and abuse.
Apply analytics for easy cross-matching in areas such as:
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– National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) and
State Directory of New Hires (SDNH) –
Disqualify UI payments once a recipient obtains employment
– Prison –
Analyze prison records to cross-match UI claimants to ensure
people who are incarcerated aren’t receiving UI benefits
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– Social Security Number Verification (SSN) –
Use data to referee: validate your SSN against the Social Security
Administration master
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– Foreign IPs –
Identify and prevent filing or paying claims to foreign IP addresses
– Hot IP –
Identify and prevent filing or paying claims to a “hot” IP address
known for fraudulent claims
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* (National Association of State Workforce Agencies, “UI Integrity Assessment Report”)
– Drivers’ licenses –
Analyze state DMV records for positive verification
– State Vital Records Department –
Access death master files to ensure people who are deceased aren’t
receiving UI benefits
– Foreign travel records –
Cross-check recipients with travel records to avoid improper
payments to citizens living abroad
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Figure 2: Violation by approver
Figure 3: Improper payments by amount
Automated analytics can continuously monitor to detect fraud and spot emerging trends, such as:
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Fraud rings or multi-claimant fraud
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Fictitious employer schemes
Other Areas to Practice Cross Matching:
UI Claims Paid
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New hires
Retirees
Multiple claimant criteria matching
Blacklisted addresses
Claimant / Employer address match
Unreported Earnings
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Federal – State Agency Data
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Food stamp entitlements
Child care subsidies
Federal disability payments
Workers compensation claims
National Guard
IRS employees
Part-time employees
Large company layoffs
Temp agency employees
Hours worked vs. wages reported
Agency Employees
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Filing as claimant
Same telephone # as claimant
Address same as claimant
Inappropriate or suspicious changes
SOLUTION BRIEF
CUSTOMER ROI:

$1.4B
recovered by the U.S. Air Force in
misappropriated funds

$173K
in a single improper payment
uncovered by Louisiana Legislative
Auditor in just one five-minute data test
“We needed a solution that
provided us with the ability to look
at any type of data, old or new, from
any source. There are no limits to
data interrogation. ACL Analytics
Exchange and ACL GRC Results
Manager will allow us to further
protect taxpayer dollars and better
serve the people of South Carolina.”
– Cheryl Stanton–
Executive Director, South Carolina
Department of Employment and
Workforce
SOLUTION BENEFITS
How does ACL technology improve unemployment insurance integrity?
Data Access
Management
ACL technology was designed to be agnostic and obtain, import and
process data from any disparate data source.
Collaboration
The ACL platform enables collaboration across units and job
functions, creating an auditable universe of transactions from
multiple, disparate data sources.
Performance
ACL can analyze billions of records and accurately serve up the
exceptions based on your criteria.
Continuous Monitoring
Given the immense volume of UI disbursements, you need to
implement tests that will continuously check 100% of your datasets
for improper payments. ACL software can automate this monitoring
and flag potential issues.
Investigations &
Workflow
When continuous data monitoring detects potential issues, flagged
records may require review, investigation and remediation. Securely
manage that entire process in a platform designed for workflow
review and remediation
Visualize Your Records
Part of the review and remediation process might require the
detection of sophisticated patterns in the data that you can’t see
without a picture. ACL helps you paint a picture worth a thousand
rows of data, and also lets you create a report graph to communicate
the value of your work.




50%
70%
61%
50%
deployed ACL GRC in
less than 15 days
said their team was
comfortable using ACL
GRC in <30 days
of leaders said overall
change management in
automated processes in
ACL GRC was “easy” or
“very easy”
felt ACL Analytics gives
their team the
equivalent of 1 full-time
person in extra
bandwidth to do
value-added work
Modern technology is no longer optional if you need to build an airtight process to protect taxpayer
dollars from fraudster—and help keep you off the front page.
A data-driven, GRC solution with sophisticated workflow for collaboration with other business units
can help government departments better serve residents by identifying and acting on any risk-related
red flags in real-time.
Call us at 1-888-669-4225 or email [email protected] to speak to one of our experts to learn how
you can proactively monitor claimant data to stop fraud and improper payments and protect your
agency’s reputation.
Learn more about what you can
accomplish with ACL.
Call 1-888-669-4225 to speak
with a representative
Visit our website at acl.com
Email us at [email protected]
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