According to information from the Association of British Insurers (ABI), insurance companies identified more attempted fraudulent insurance claims in 2014 than they did in the previous year with car insurance claims being the biggest target for fraudsters. This has helped to keep the cost of car insurance premiums lower than what they could have been.
The insurance industry has proved successful at thwarting a number of fraudulent insurance claims.
Apparently, last year, car insurance companies identified 67,000 fraudulent claims made on policies with this being a 12% increase when compared with 2013. The value of these claims came to a staggering £835 million with this being a 3% rise on 2013.
In total, the insurance industry identified 130,000 fraudulent claims for £1.32 billion of which fraudulent motor insurance claims were the largest in terms of value and numbers.
The insurance industry is to be commended for its efforts in this respect. The likes of the Insurance Fraud Register, the Government’s Insurance Fraud Task Force, Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department and the Insurance Fraud Bureau have no doubt all played their part in helping to detect insurance fraud cases resulting in the above savings.
You may well have heard about the various “crash for cash” scams that happen all too often involving an honest and dishonest motorist. Some innocent motorists are being injured in such accidents and anything that can be done to reduce such scams has got to be welcomed.
Anyone caught attempting insurance fraud could face severe consequences including such things as going to prison, being fined, struggling to get competitively priced insurance products in the future or indeed other financial products such as loans, credit cards and mortgages.
Average car insurance premiums that have been dropping in the last couple of years or so are now moving upwards. Let us hope that the number of attempted car insurance fraudulent cases that are detected continues to grow thus, hopefully, mitigating any more rises.
