Car insurance fraud adds £50 to annual bill

The insurance industry has calculated fraudulent car cover applications cost honest families £50 every year.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said it made the estimate after conducting research to discover the true extent of fraud for the first time.

It uncovered an average 3,475 cases each week of motorists lying on their applications for insurance or deliberately leaving relevant information off them.

The ABI said it registered 180,675 attempts to make fraudulent applications for motor insurance last year in a bid to get a cheaper bill.

The most common cases involved drivers pretending their "no claims bonus" was longer than it really was or trying to cover up past driving convictions.

Some even gave a false name or lied about where they live to pretend their car was being kept in a more crime-free area.

Other fraudulent applications involved "fronting", where for example a parent pretends to be the main driver of a car when in reality it is their child, who is more expensive to insure.

In one of the more serious cases, an applicant was jailed for three years when the person failed to disclose four previous claims and an unspent motoring conviction.

The industry believes almost one in five policyholders under-declares the number of motoring convictions they have.

The ABI said it hoped a data-sharing programme, called MyLicence, would enable the industry to obtain better information on drivers from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to help bring down the costs to every motorist from fraud.

The body said that forcing drivers to reveal their 16-character driving licence number would weaken the applicant's ability to give false or misleading details and should save honest customers about £15 a year.

According to figures by AA Insurance, the average cost of comprehensive cover fell 19.3% to £504 in the year to June amid other industry reforms to combat fraudulent car accident claims.

Aidan Kerr, the ABI's head of fraud, said: "While insurers know that innocent mistakes and oversights do happen, they are also aware that some people think that being less than honest is a way to get cheaper cover, when the way to get the best deal is to play it straight with the insurer".

Source: Sky News