Putting the brakes on "Crash for Cash" fraud

If November’s floods weren’t enough to dampen the UK’s spirits, the recent actions of insurance fraudsters up and down the country are most certainly still causing a storm!

Deliberately causing crashes and faking accidents is a tactic that’s becoming extremely common on Britain’s roads. More and more drivers are doing this to unfairly claim insurance for damage repair and injury compensation.

Yes, as daft as it sounds, people really are willing to deliberately cause damage to their cars and potentially their bodies, just to make a few quid!

The Insurance Fraud Bureau’s (IFB) latest report shows the extent of the problem. An estimated average cost of £2.1 billion per year is paid out as a result of fraudulent claims. That costs an individual policyholder an extra £50 annually.

It’s a scandal really. Not only is this an illegal act, it’s also a ‘victimless’ crime. In other words, it’s the honest driver that foots the bill for unfairly inflated premiums. But the act of a ‘cash for crash’ scam is, more seriously, putting every driver on the road in danger.

That’s not something we should take lightly. Nor should we ignore the fact that much of the claimed money then works its way back into organised crime, funding further illegal activity.

So what’s being done to tackle the issue? The IFB is currently investigating any suspicious incidents on the road, and is co-ordinating 40 police operations across the country in the hope of stopping any further incidents. The organisation is also raising awareness of the problem in a bid to protect innocent motorists.

Let’s hope the clamp down is as tough as it can possibly be. The insurance industry is right behind any further steps that can be taken to put an end to this sorry state of affairs.