Motor insurance fraud: 'The genie is out of the bottle' - Hill Dickinson

The inaugural Hill Dickinson Claims and Fraud Index, published exclusively by Insurance Times, has revealed the full extent of motor insurance fraud across the country.

Birmingham is the place where motor fraud is most prevalent in the UK, with 13.3% of all motor insurance fraud taking place in Britain’s second city.

London and its surrounding areas take up three of the top five slots (see table below), while Manchester also makes an appearance on the list of motor fraud hotspots.

Hill Dickinson Counter Fraud Group head of fraud Peter Oakes said the level of fraud across the UK has been increasing over the past couple decades.

“Fraud is definitely increasing,” he said. “I have been dealing with cases for 16 to 17 years and I have definitely seen fraud increase. I don’t think it’s just more awareness of fraud, there is definitely more fraud out there.”

“Most of the high volume fraud is within the motor insurance sector,” he added.

And Oakes said that despite the recent wave of motor legal reforms, such as the Jackson and Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders reforms, fraudsters will still continue to operate in the motor arena.

“The ban on the referral fee was designed to have a positive impact on fraud,” Oakes said. “However, although you can’t have a direct referral fee (for a personal injury case) there are still lots of ways around the ban on referral fees, so it hasn’t had that significant an impact.

“The genie is out of the bottle almost, a lot of people moved into this sector – including fraudsters – and there’s still a revenue stream, so organised fraud will continue to be very popular.”

Read the full report

For the full results of this exclusive new index check out the latest issue of Insurance Times published later today.

Using data from Hill Dickinson’s Netfoil database the index looks at the trends that are emerging in this problematic area, profiles the individuals committing these crimes and maps out the UK’s fraud hotspots for the top five different types of motor insurance fraud.

Methodology

The Netfoil database contains approximately 175 million unique claim records, relating to about 10 million claims. Netfoil’s primary data source is the claims and accident management industry and in particular, the credit hire industry. Netfoil also contains data from across the insurance sector and has unique access to the Metropolitan Police’s Amberhill dataset of false identities.