Car insurance news

Police arrest motor insurance fraudsters

A group of seven motor insurance fraudsters have been arrested during a police raid in London.

They are thought to have made up to 60 false claims from car insurance firms, netting them thousands of pounds in compensation. However, through close links with insurance providers, police became suspicious and started to investigate the gang.

It was found that the gang employed a range of tactics in order to claim personal injury compensation from motor insurance companies in the UK. Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Wilmott, head of the investigation, gave some details as to how the group operated:

"One [variation] is they will buy an old vehicle for £200 and then buy an expensive but wrecked vehicle.

"The old vehicle then allegedly hits the very expensive vehicle that's already written off and the insurer would pay out to the value of the expensive vehicle. The group of criminals will have 'witnesses' to the accident who are also staged.

"The other way of doing it is buy an old banger and deliberately hit a nice vehicle with a family in it that they know will be insured. They then produce their own witnesses and will claim personal injury, things like whiplash or claims that they can't go to work."

Insurance fraud is a massive problem in the UK and is estimated to cost the country over £1 billion annually. The motor insurance industry is working hard to crack down on fraudsters and has implemented a range of initiatives to catch the criminals at work.

One such initiative is a database that shares information between insurers and police, allowing better tracking of suspicious claimants.