There are approximately 1,300 insurance scams uncovered every single day, and these are just the ones we find out about. Some insurance scams seem ingenious, these fraudsters are constantly looking for new scams to exploit.
The Association of British Insurers published an article last year detailing the lengths that some insurance cheats will go to try and con their insurer which we have compiled into a list of the 8 Biggest Insurance Scams.
- Praying for a Payout – A preacher fraudulently bought car insurance in another person’s name, then contacted the insurer saying he’d had a crash. It turned out that he also owned the other vehicle in question. He received a 10-month prison sentence.
- Crash for Cash – An organised “crash for cash” gang staged car crashes to con almost £1.2 million from insurers. The ringleader and gang members all received harsh prison sentences.
- Burst Pipes – A gang claimed almost £1 million in damages for restaurants that they said had been flooded by burst water pipes. Except that they had deliberately smashed the pipes. They were all jailed.
- Ghost Broker – A man who posed as an insurance broker to sell fake fleet insurance policies covering 70 vehicles was jailed for two years.
- Dishonest Hotelier – One man claimed over £34k in disability benefits, for anxiety and depression, meaning that he could not work. He was, in fact, running a hotel.
- It’s No Holiday in Jail – Another man tried making multiple claims to several different insurers for the sum of 20k for a cancelled family holiday, using fraudulent paperwork.
- Rocking and Rolling – A retired fridge engineer claimed that he had suffered hearing loss due to his job. He stated in his claim that he had no noisy hobbies. It later transpired that he was in a rock and roll band.
- Compensation Expectations – A woman from West Yorkshire staged a fall over some crates in a supermarket in order to claim compensation. She received a suspended jail sentence.
Insurance fraud is a pain for honest customers as fraudulent compensation claims are responsible for inflating the price of premiums. The insurance industry spends around £250 million a year on measures to tackle this type of crime.
To get a quick and easy quote on your insurance contact Ashburnham Insurance today on FREEPHONE 0800 1696137.