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MSE News: "Staged accidents" drive up car insurance costs - report
Former_MSE_Helen
Former MSE 2.4K Posts
in Motoring
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"The House of Commons Transport Committee also urges the Government to make driving tests more rigorous ..."
"The House of Commons Transport Committee also urges the Government to make driving tests more rigorous ..."
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These crimes are to time consuming to investigate and the offenders are mainly known criminals or illegal imigrants. So put in the too hard to do box.
Until the police start taking these offences seriously our premiums will keep going up and the offenders will make a mint.
I can also state that this policy is made by senior officers, not the actual workforce, so don't blame the bobby on the street, they would love to arrest the offenders.
They are more inclined to take action if they are interested in the perpetrators in relation to other crimes, however, and in those cases they are a bit more willing to take information from the insurers who are investigating the claims. If it's a larger scale scam, too, maybe involving stolen vehicles, or vehicles that are to be exported, or credit card fraud in addition, they are more likely to take some action. However, they do expect the victims (the insurers) to do an awful lot of the donkey work with regard to investigation before they are prepared to even take a look.
In many instances there will not be sufficient to prosecute on a criminal level, but from a civil point of view, insurers could get tough, investigate such dubious cases and refuse them.
If they weren't paying them out, they wouldn't be trying it on!
Sorry, but I work in an enforcement area outside of the police. We don't expect the police to tidy up our problems, we have investigators who deal with it and prosecute wherever possible and being active and publicising it is the best deterent you can have.
It does not have to be the police that deals with every criminal matter. It's high time insurer's upped their game, invested in serious fraud prevention measures, instead of shrugging their shoulders, paying huge numbers of bogus claims and passing on the cost to us. It's time they cleaned up their act!
Could you please clarify what you mean by "serious fraud prevention measures"? Do you have any knowledge of how insurers currently aim to counter fraud? In what particular specific areas are they lacking?
The Goverment has a role to play too - they have dragged their heels on providing electronic license and conviction checking facilities for far too long.
Two birds with one stone
http://www.insurancefraudbureau.org/files/press_release_pdfs/ifb_response_to_transport_select_committee_report_final_11-3-11_pdf.pdf
Go on then, surprise me. Tell me how many private prosecutions Insurance companies brought in 2010??
Tell me how much they invest in fraud prevention as a percentage of the total £££ involved in the whole industry?
Do you remember the late 80's and early 90's and cars were hot wired and stolen many hundreds per day. People then moaned the police weren't tackling the problem. Not doing enough to tackle the teams involved. Always the police or the governments problem is it? Very easy to point the finger that way.
A few back then were shouted down when they said it was the car manufacurers problem and they needed to get their act together and take some responsibilty. Fifteen years on and you could not move a car without a key and taking a car by breaking in and wiring it became a thing of the past.
The industry needs to take some responsibility. If it weren't a cash cow, these people wouldn't try it on.
£350m in fraud
http://www.insurancefraudbureau.org/files/press_release_pdfs/afi_2011_final_2011-01-26_report.pdf
page 37
35 million vehicles in the uk
£10 per vehicle.
It's enough, but how excited will you get over £10 a year?
Well yes, but when you are the victim of this the personal costs are considerably more.