Bogus Insurance Claims On The Up

According to a group of insurers, the number of people making fraudulent insurance claims greatly increased in the UK last year and is now at record levels.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) have said that fraudulent claims cost them a staggering £840m pounds last year after seeing a 14% rise on 2008.  There were around 122,000 cases of bogus insurance claims last year. 

The ABI also added however, that they were unable to tell if there had in fact been a higher number of cases was actually due to there being more fraudulent claims, or if the rise was caused by better detection of such things by the insurers.

According to the figures, the percentage of the overall claims that were deemed to be bogus was 4%, the same level that it was at last year, this suggests that there were more insurance claims made overall in 2009 than in 2008.

The ABI also said that the highest number of dodgy or exaggerated claims was seen in home insurance cases.  However, the costliest field was car insurance, accounting for around £410m worth of the total.

"Our honest customers rightly object to having to pay higher premiums to subsidise the fraudulent minority, which is why insurers continue to up their game in the war on the cheats," said Nick Starling, of the ABI.

As an indication of the types of claims that were wrongly made last year, they offered an example of somebody who had claimed for a head injury apparently caused by a fall when in fact, they had been hit with a baseball bat during a fight.

Meanwhile, separate figures released by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau have shown that the highest numbers of uninsured drivers are to be found in London, with Merseyside and Greater Manchester also having a large number.

Posted at 10:00AM Jul 24, 2010 by Marc Stenton in UK Economy News  |  Comments[0]