One in 14 Car Insurance Claims are Fraudulent

Sept. 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Each week insurers are finding 865 dishonest car insurance claims, worth £10.4 million. These figures come a week after the ABI launched its latest initiative to protect honest customers with The Insurance Fraud Register, which is a national database of known insurance fraudsters.

The UK insurance industry is the third largest in the world and the largest in Europe and employs over 290,000 people.  It is a vital part of the UK economy; managing investments amounting to 26% of the UK’s total net worth and contributing £10.4 billion in taxes to the Government.

The ABI figures show that in 2011 around 45,000 motor insurance (http://compareinsurers.com/Car-Insurance/Car-Insurance-Providers.aspx) claims were found to be fraudulent, this means that 7% or 1 in 14 of all motor insurance claims made were false.   The savings made for honest customers in detecting these bogus claims were £541 million.

Nick Starling, ABI’s Director of General Insurance, said “Anyone who thinks that claiming for bogus injuries following a road accident is money waiting to be collected is in for a nasty surprise. Insurers will do whatever it takes to protect their honest customers by weeding out the cheats.

“The new Insurance Fraud Register means that insurers will be able to check for insurance fraudsters, who will face not only a criminal conviction, but more expensive and harder to get future insurance as well as difficulties in getting other financial products, such as loans.”

The record rise in car insurance (http://www.compareinsurers.com/) fraud is down to phantom passengers and fake injuries, the following examples show some of the made up claims and how they were found out.

A car insurance (http://www.compareinsurers.com/Compare-Car-Insurance.aspx) policyholder claimed to have been involved in an accident with another vehicle at a roundabout. However, the claim was rejected when an anonymous tip off led the insurer to discover that the crash was staged and that the people claiming injury were not in the vehicles.

A woman claimed she was severely disabled following a road accident, leaving her unable to work. Evidence to support the claim was given by her husband and daughter. However, surveillance footage proved that she was not disabled and was working. The value of the rejected claim was £650,000. The claimant, her husband and daughter all received prison sentences.

A man telephoned his insurer to report that he had reversed his car into a lamppost causing whiplash injuries to his two passengers. However, his story however soon unravelled when, believing he had ended the phone call, he could be heard loudly boasting to friends about how he had lied.  

The ABI is the voice of insurance, representing the general insurance, investment and long-term savings industry. It was formed in 1985 to represent the whole of the industry and today has over 300 members, accounting for some 90% of premiums in the UK.