Accident compensation news
17/04/2009

Insurance fraud up in 2008

Fraudulent accident compensation claims are thought to account for a significant proportion of the 2,000 fraudulent insurance claims made in the UK each week, according to the Association of British Insurers.

In fact, the ABI study indicates that around one in four of all insurance claims are fraudulent, with 110,000 such bogus claims being made in 2008. 35,000 of these were thought to be dishonest car accident compensation claims, while several thousand were attributable to fraudulent holiday injury claims.

Mark Jones, a financial crime consultant, used news of the data as an opportunity to comment on the way the recession may be causing some people to disingenuously contact no win, no fee solicitors in order to make fraudulent accident compensation claims. "Recessions make people desperate and insurance is proving a tempting option, with most opportunistic fraudulent claims being travel and household," he said."However," he adds, "insurers are moving to combat this to ensure fraud does not become synonymous with insurance."

The ABI figures showed that there has been a 30% rise in fraud, compared to figures for 2007.