The lengths insurance cheats will go to try to con their insurer are laid bare this week as the ABI published its annual detected fraud figures. The total number of fraudulent claims and applications detected in 2018, at 469,000, rose by 3% on 2017, with their value up 6%. Every day, 1,300 insurance scams are uncovered, with the average con of £12,000. A preacher, a rock guitarist pensioner, and an award-winning hotelier were among the insurance cheats exposed.
During the last year, the equivalent of two cheats every week received a criminal conviction or a caution for insurance fraud. Cases investigated by the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department, the specialist police insurance fraud investigation unit funded by the insurance industry, included sixteen people involved in a crash for cash crime gang who received a collective 33 years in jail sentences, and a man convicted of selling fake motor insurance who was jailed for two years.
In examples of fraud, the ringleader of an organised gang that staged motor crashes to con nearly £1.2 million from insurers was jailed for six years. Other gang members also received jail sentences totalling nearly 33 years. A man made multiple claims to different travel insurers claiming that illness meant he had to cancel his family holiday. He used fake airline tickets, bank statements and emails of hotel reservations to claim nearly £20,000. He received a 16-month jail sentence. Finally a retired fridge engineer dropped his claim for hearing loss caused by his work, when it emerged that he was a frontman in a rock ’n’ roll band. Claim documents denied that he had any noisy hobbies. The judges gave the insurer permission to bring a case for contempt of court.