Motoring Fraud

What is Motoring Fraud?

Motor fraud arises most commonly in the following ways:

• By being a passenger or a driver in a car that is used as the target vehicle in a collision and thus, when individuals in that vehicle make a claim, they are susceptible to prosecution as the accident is clearly not genuine.
• When collisions are staged on both sides but the details of entirely innocent people are used in the whole claim process.

In the internet era, it is easy to obtain sufficient details of an individual required to set up these ventures. Those details are then used to buy a car, insure it and be named as the individual responsible for causing the staged accident. Sometimes those details are then used to hire a replacement car under the terms of the insurance policy. Using that car, a further accident is staged.

It has been known that people working within hire car companies have not complied with their requirements as to verifying identification because they too are involved in the criminal enterprise. The criminals at the top of the tree, however, are the directors of the Claim Management Companies (CMC).

When an accident happens most people either call their insurers or go to a CMC who deal with the whole process. It is the latter which has provided the problems. The CMC would refer the claim onto a firm of solicitors with whom they have a close working relationship. For that referral, they used to be paid a “referral fee”. This practice has now been abolished but the companies are finding other methods to recoup that money in ways which do not fall foul of the legislation – staged accidents are still occurring.

All of this means you could be caught up in a claim that could seriously affect your future if you are involved in a deliberate accident.

If you are suspected of Motor Insurance Fraud, get in touch for advice.