Birmingham councillor slams ‘incorrect’ burglary figures for pushing up home premiums

Birmingham councillor Rob Pocock has slammed figures that he claims wrongly branded his ward a burglary hotspot.

The Labour councillor for Sutton Coldfield’s Vesey ward says the error will lead to a hike in home insurance premiums for his constituents.

He has written to the Crime Commissioner requesting figures for the affected area.

He has also written to insurers to ask for more information, according to The Birmingham Mail.

Pocock started his own investigation last week after a report in the Mail said the B73 postcode of the Sutton suburb had been named by insurers as one of the country’s worst burglary hotspots. It was rated as the ninth most likely to fall prey to burglars in the country.

Since the report Pocock says he has been inundated with complaints from angry homeowners.

And claims that, according to his own calculations, the insurance figures are 500% higher than the official crime figures.

Pocock said: “From the figures I have found there is something clearly very wrong here. I don’t know what is happening but I am trying to find out and I want it put right.

“My calculations show that the insurance figures are 500% higher than the official crime figures, which would obviously push up premiums for householders.”

The figures came from 3.1 million home insurance quotes submitted from across the UK to the website MoneySupermarket.com over a year.

The Vesey ward recorded 29.5 insurance claims per 1,000 people – according to insurers.

Pocock claims he has been told by the police that in the last four months there have been 30 recorded burglaries and a further 31 relating to other types of break-ins. He adds the figures relate to a much bigger area than the B73 postcode and that over the whole year the figures are around 100 for that entire area.

A MoneySupermarket spokesman said: “Just because somewhere is a claim hotspot, it doesn’t mean it is not a nice place to live.”