It was bound to happen - an insurer is now refusing to quote for customers in two Bradford post codes because of fake injury claims.
Can you blame esure?
They are an insurance company, not an insurance charity.
Fair play to them, their spokesman is quite open about what they are doing and why:
www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/9093104.Driver_hits_out_as_insurance_company_refuses_to_offer_quotes/
|
Great move in principle. How many uninsured drivers will there be in the area if most insurance companies follow their lead?
We need to have fines that make uninsured driving too costly, but then can these people pay the fines? Even if they can it will most likely infringe their human rights. Of course we rarely see anyone to enforce the rules anyway which is why the insurance company has acted.
|
And not before time...my future step daughter ran into the back of a taxi at very slow speed in Bradistan and one passenger became 4 when claims were submitted. She was 17yo, took no photos at the scene of the accident and the claim is still ongoing some 20 months later, forcing her to stay with the same insurers for cover until it is settled. Her insurance has increased from £1180 to £1960 on a car worth £300. So much for being a law abiding citizen.
My solution is very non pc.
Last edited by: legacylad on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 08:31
|
But why Bradford, or why these particular districts of Bradford? What is so special or distinctive about them?
You understand, of course, that I live in the Deep South and therefore anything North of Watford is completely unknown to me.
Last edited by: Duncan on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 08:41
|
|
Its a great pity that Hadrian didn't build his wall along the M4. :-)
|
I thought insurance fraud carried an automatic jail term.
Therin lies the solution. If people knew they'd be doing time for fraudulent claims it might act as a deterrent.
Instead of insurance companies doing a little detective work, it's far easier for them just to bump everyones premiums up.
|
>> But why Bradford, or why these particular districts of Bradford?
>> What is so special or distinctive about them?
I haven't knowingly driven in BD2 / BD3 (the northeastern quadrant of the city) lately but I have been into the BD5 area (southwestern quadrant) a few times and I fully understand esure's position. It's a free-for-all on the roads there, with many quite obviously unroadworthy cars being driven erratically and with no regard for even the most basic rules of the road such as giving way or even keeping left. The driver behaviour there is quite different to anything I've seen in any other part of the UK, London included.
|
|
It's the Sharia law in Bradford wot does it!
|
A>> And not before time...my future step daughter ran into the back of a taxi at
>> very slow speed in Bradistan and one passenger became 4 when claims were submitted. She
>> was 17yo, took no photos at the scene of the accident and the claim is
>> still ongoing some 20 months later, forcing her to stay with the same insurers for
>> cover until it is settled. Her insurance has increased from £1180 to £1960 on a
>> car worth £300. So much for being a law abiding citizen.
>> My solution is very non pc.
>>
And there are people who say in car cameras are a bad idea . . . .
how soon before they are standard fit.
|
>>
>> how soon before they are standard fit.
>>
I am sure it will come, I usually have a "proper" camera in the car and if not the phone camera will do the job. I would think that many photos taken at the scene of the bump including the people involved would discourage inflated claims.
|
And the annoying thing is I had given her a disposable camera to keep in the car for just such eventualities. And she had a camera phone.
Being young and inexperienced she panicked after the minor collision.And it was her word against theirs with no independent witnesses
The very same thing happened in Halifax with older sister a year later....fortunately there was an independent witness out walking their dog who saw everything. Guess what, it was all settled in a few weeks.
|
It's about time insurance companies actually cross referenced claims as it is very common for two people to take out insurance then suddenly drive into one another. Many are doing it repeatedly and yet they don't notice!
There were one lot that spent two years having bumps on one roundabout in Burton On Trent. Insurance companies didn't notice.
Every time you ring one of them up they say they record stuff and cross reference it but they clearly don't as otherwise they'd be refusing claims left right and centre.
|
They don't teabelly.
Had a bogus claim against me and the bogus witnesses provided by the third party signed their witness statements in a different name and this was not picked up by my insurance company. I was willing to go to court to fight it but my insurance didn't want to know. 50/50 they said.
When I posted my tale of woe on my car club forum I had many fellow members who swore they wouldn't use that specialist firm, a couple of them even cancelled and went elsewhere. When you have invested a considerable amount of time and money in a classic car and someone in a rusty old nail drives into you, you don't need an insurance company who are blind, lazy and stupid.
|
>> It was bound to happen - an insurer is now refusing to quote for customers
>> in two Bradford post codes because of fake injury claims.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get this. This scam relies on claiming on someone else's insurance, not your own, so what difference is the insurance companies ban going to make?
|
>> Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get this. This scam relies on claiming on
>> someone else's insurance, not your own, so what difference is the insurance companies ban going
>> to make?
I had that thought too but I guess their thinking is along lines that those who live there are at most risk. Not going to help the locals get insurance though is it.
|
...I had that thought too but I guess their thinking is along lines that those who live there are at most risk...
I'm sure that's right.
Whenever the coppers set up a speed trap following pressure from residents, 90 per cent of the people they catch are residents.
Which shows that most drivers in any given town are local.
There's a quote from esure in the linked story:
"Most accidents occur less than five miles from home and in many BD2 postcodes we found that for each £1 in premiums received we were paying out up to twice that in injury claims to third parties."
|
>> "Most accidents occur less than five miles from home.."
I've seen that quoted before and it's because most journeys are less than 5 miles!
I guess in Bradford what might be happening is that the're staging accidents on each other (rather than causing innocent 3rd parties to crash into the them).
|
I am not surprised one bit, although it goes on in all walks of life not just parts of Bradford.
I think the government really really need to come hard on people who cheat insurance companies, a real threat of prison for faking medical injuries will soon stop all the whip lash claims.
|
|
I understand that it can be common to have one car insured, and several clones of it running around - same number plate, photocopy of tax disk, etc. So the cars aren't picked up by ANPR.
|
>> the government need to come down hard on people who cheat insurance companies
Unfortunately, for some sections of the population this is considered normal behaviour - the insurance companies are simply seen as a part of the "system" that can be milked for free cash by saying the right things and filling in the right forms.
Tigger - I'm fairly sure your comment could be equally applied to driving licences.
|
About time too, small acorns, hopefully large trees will result.
Strangely enough i had another text today from ScamsRus, reminding me that i haven't yet claimed for the accident i haven't had.
I'm not deleting this one, hopefully someone somewhere will decide enough is enough and require all such small snippets of evidence to be forwarded...won't hold me breath though.
|
What will happen is that some do gooder lefty will take esure to court for racism, because a large minority of the people in that area are not white.
Esure will then need to prove statistically that this is just good risk management and not racism.
A bit like the insurance companies that asked how long you have lived in the UK etc.
Last edited by: zippy on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 18:56
|
Will it ever get to a stage where insurance companies turn around and ban you from actually driving through certain areas?
They could probably track you by GPS and make the premiums for entering a particular area really expensive.
Just imagine the monthly bill
01/04 - 10:01 5 miles home to shops £0:50
01/04 - 10:50 5 miles shops to home £0:50
01/04 - 17:30 5 miles ring road £2:00 - rush hour premium
01/04 - 19:30 12 miles to dodgy area £225:00 high risk area premium
etc....
|
As longs as they can back it up then any allegations of racism will quickly be thrown out.
I think the thing about cloned licences and cloned cars is a bit extreme, it probably does go on but I am sure it is quite rare, the vast majority of the people living in these parts of Bradford will be law abiding, but there will be enough which are not to cause the nightmare for insurance companies.
|
|
As is almost always the case, the bad ones spoil it for the rest!
|
>> the vast majority of the people living in these parts of Bradford will be law abiding...
if 43% is the 'vast majority'!
www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/1997953.six_out_of_ten_drivers_not_insured/
|
So those areas have a high proportion of uninsured drivers.
And esure is refusing to insure people who live there.
Anyone surprised then that if other companies follow Esure's lead, the number of uninsured drivers will increase rather than decrease?
Joined up thinking at its best, innit?
|
>> the number of uninsured drivers will increase rather than decrease?
I don't think the uninsured drivers give a stuff whether the annual premium is £400, or £2,000 or £10,000, they aren't prepared to pay for insurance, end of.
I suspect a fair proportion of the *insured* cars in the district are licensed cabs, thus the council acts as an enforcement agency... no insurance = no plate. So the percentage of uninsured private cars could actually be higher than the 57.2% in that article.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 20:23
|
But what are decent drivers like you, prepared to pay £10,000, to do if you can't get insurance at any price in Bradford? Drive without insurance?
|
>> But what are decent drivers like you, prepared to pay £10,000, to do if you can't get insurance
>> at any price in Bradford? Drive without insurance?
No, not have a car. It's a privilege, not a right.
I wouldn't contemplate the idea of driving whilst uninsured under any circumstances.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 20:34
|
>> Esure will then need to prove statistically that this is just good risk management
That would put them in a tricky position, where everybody knows they're right but it's devilishly difficult to quantify. How does one count the number of uninsured motorists? i.e. How does one tally numbers *not* on a database?
|
Insurance companies already have a well used method for avoiding customers they don't want - the £25k / year quote.
Maybe this is just a bit of posturing to keep the civil justice reforms the ABI were keen on, in the public conscience.
|
What I don't understand is why the police tolerate any area having 7 times the national average of uninsured drivers.
Why don't they send a bunch of cars around with ANPR, scooping up the uninsured drivers until there aren't any left? How long could it possibly take until they had knocked out a huge number of them?
I really blame the policing, if they have allowed it to get to that level.
I'm not claiming that it's the most serious crime out there, or should attract huge resources, but it just seems that it is something they could hit very hard, very easily.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 23 Jun 11 at 10:43
|
>> What I don't understand is why the police tolerate any area having 7 times the
>> national average of uninsured drivers.
>>
The same reason why the Police have tolerated sex abuse of young girls by people from the same tribal community
That tribal community has a particular religion, but it is to do with their tribe than their religion. They mostly originate from a small tribal area of a former British Colony. They have enclaves in other parts of the UK too, and they are in effect out of reach of UK Police. They are fertile grounds for recruits who wish to kill British soldiers.
However, there are other people of the same religion who come from other tribal areas either of the same former British Colony or nearby former colonies, and these other tribes are in the main living lives as law abiding citizens of the UK. You have to look at the tribe in question in Bradford to understand their mores and their behaviour.
|
|
I find myself in the odd postion of almost agreeing with John H - except for the implication of police inaction in the first para,
|
The issue is well known, but isn't the answer to try and get to cause of why people from that certain ethnic group who often have a certain religion are more likely to drive without insurance?
I suspect it is partly culture, because they see their cousins getting away with it they do it as well.
The only ones I know (including one of my best friends) is more or less completely legit so I don't know how much of a big problem it is. I wonder if certain parts of Manchester, e.g M13, M14, M16 and perhaps M19 have the same problem as they have a similar demographic to those areas in Bradford.
If agreed cloning is going on then that is a major issue which needs to be sorted as well but if they do that sooner or later the cops are going to see the same two cars on the road at the same time.
|
>> The issue is well known, but isn't the answer to try and get to cause
>> of why people from that certain ethnic group who often have a certain religion are
>> more likely to drive without insurance?
>>
It is narrower than ethnicity and religion - it is focussed in the majority on a particular "tribe".
|
|
Would it be the types of tribes which hate each other in their home country by any chance?
|
Who on earth found something causing them to add a frowning face to SS's pertinent and valid post above, bizarre.
There is only one cure for this type of crime, and a crime it should be, not a motoring offence, and that's to hit them severely in the pocket, enforced crippling fines.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Tue 21 Jun 11 at 21:09
|
Yep what is the point on giving them 3-6 points when they can just get a fake driving licence of their second cousin anyway.
Some people have several IDs too, which causes the authorities some head aches but road side finger printing devices are now being used to crack down on that type of crime.
A £3000 fine will soon stop them, or rather 30% of their income.
|
>> I find myself in the odd postion of almost agreeing with John H - except
>> for the implication of police inaction in the first para,
>>
www.ramadhanfoundation.com/grooming.htm
|
There are complaints of inaction But I believe action is just round the corner when there will be a requirement for all vehicles, unless SORN'd, to be insured whether on public or private property.
Should be able to clean up nicely. Err if there were any coppers left to do so.
|
>> >> I find myself in the odd postion of almost agreeing with John H -
>> except
>> >> for the implication of police inaction in the first para,
>> >>
>>
>> www.ramadhanfoundation.com/grooming.htm
What is it with the girls' upbringing that their self esteem is so low that they fall for 'grooming'?
My daughter and her contemporaries would laugh in the faces of boys of any race religion or tribe who tried the sort of stuff desribed in that link.
|
"My daughter and her contemporaries would laugh in the faces of boys of any race religion or tribe who tried the sort of stuff desribed in that link. "
Can you be so sure? Teenage girls can be very impressionable. Attention given by older males with the gift of the gab can soon hook them. There will always be some who take the bait.
All teenagers have their secret side. Do you know who they are talking to on the interweb. We can only guide and try to educate them to the dangers all around them.
|
>> There will always be some who take the bait
>> .
>>
>> All teenagers have their secret side. Do you know who they are talking to on
>> the interweb. We can only guide and try to educate them to the dangers all
>> around them.
For the vast majority of them I think parents can be reasonably certain. Some lasses are of course so insecure that they respond to so called grooming. The Mailesque 'is your daughter a victim' stuff is just playing on fears - real help with dealing with minority of kids who might be vulnerable would be so more helpfull.
|
>> For the vast majority of them I think parents can be reasonably certain. Some lasses
>> are of course so insecure that they respond to so called grooming. The Mailesque 'is
>> your daughter a victim' stuff is just playing on fears - real help with dealing
>> with minority of kids who might be vulnerable would be so more helpfull.
I doubt it's insecurity in all but the broadest of terms, but by those terms, every single teenager is insecure.
Girls who have absolutely everything going for them - loving parents, good quality friends, intelligence etc. - fall off the rails sometimes. Same for boys to some extent but boys seem better equipped to self-corrupt than girls who seem to need an external influence to tip them out of kilter.
Still relatively friendly with a girl like that from school, she's not a waste of space or a lost cause by any measure but she's not where she could be and she's taken one hell of a long detour in life to get where she is just now.
At school if you asked me where she'd be now, i'd have put her in my shoes and me in hers and flat refused to believe any deviation from that could be possible.
|
I agree with FC that the new regs will stop a lot of non-insureds. But won't it be a postal fine, which will easily be paid by some of these crims, who are quite wealthy.
At current rates a fine is going to be a lot less than the unpaid premium. The car will just be 'sold ' to a cousin at an accomodation address....untraceable for seizing.
I agree with John h as well but lets not pussyfoot around. This 'rear collision ' business is an Asian crime. I have several good friends who are Asian and we do discuss this. The opinion is that there seems to be a different morality emerging, particularly among young Asians...both sexes too......Girls of 13 to 16 come past my house at school chucking out time, a large proportion Asian. The langauge is appalling, four letter words that would make a docker blush, bottles are thrown about, one through a car window. Litter is dropped or stuffed down the protective netting we have round our pavement trees.
I read the local evening paper every night and you can guarantee lots of Asian names in the reports of various crimes, from GPs and hospital doctors touching up patients to muggings and motoring offences.
This was not the case 20/30 yrs ago.
I see the difference in culture in a very minor way sometimes. My pal Ali, the local postmaster, will happily make me a cuppa but never offers to make one for his wife or his Muslim lady counter assistant...never ! They are surprised when I ask them if they want a cup. It's just the way things are.....I don't think they give it a second thought.
I think things will get worse as more and more young Asians/Afro-Caribbeans find themselves unable to get work in the future.
Ted
|
>> This 'rear collision ' business is an Asian crime
The word Asian is very misleading. It fails to distinguish between Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims!
Last edited by: movilogo on Wed 22 Jun 11 at 10:34
|
...I find myself in the odd position of almost agreeing with John H...
Strewth, I think you've been brainwashed by that bloke at Spa Cycles.
|
My apologies for bumping this thread but I must comment as I know the area reasonably well and am a Muslim of Pakistani origin.
The article about the insurance mentions the areas of Eccleshill, Fagley, Undercliffe and Bolton.
Three of these areas are majority white - Bolton is the most mixed and rather nicer than the others - and two of them (Fagley and Eccleshill) are packed full of chavs and EDL/BNP supporters.
On the topic of grooming, a topic which became a talking point due in no small part to Jack Straw (son of a coward, brother of a sex offender and father of a drug dealer) kicking up a fuss about it and the media storm that accompanied it.
The cases receive disproportionate coverage in the media and most of it is downright malicious. Compare:
-the coverage of the grooming case by Asian men in Telford and the media storm over it and yet not a peep when the case collapsed at the beginning of September and formal Not Guilty verdicts were recorded and against two of the accused. Google News shows one story by the local paper and none by any of the big media outlets which had previously covered the trial.
-Operation Mansfield launched by Devon and Cornwall Police and which identified 139 victims as young as 11. Proportionately, there was less coverage of this than the previous case.
I conjecture that much of this is just bad old fashioned racism masquerading as concerned outrage. It is deeply unfortunate that people like to the point the finger at "the other" when these cases are merely an expression of the values that are prevalent in many sections of Britain today.
Almost all of these grooming cases have many things in common regardless of the background of the perpertrators: drink, drugs, neglected children, careless parenting and criminal men. This should be the real talking point but because it is easier to point the finger at "the other" then it does not happen.
|
|
Fair comment but I don't see what Jack Straw's father, brother and son have to do with his performance of his duties as Home Secretary!
|
I don't see what the sexual grooming of children by paedophiles has to do with a motor insurance company's attitude to risk in Bradford.
But hey, we don't mind a little thread drift here, so back to car insurance, or grooming, or anything else you can think of.
|
>> I don't see what the sexual grooming of children by paedophiles has to do with
>> a motor insurance company's attitude to risk in Bradford.
Neither do I. But it didn't stop several contributors up thread from chucking in stories about other suposed Asin (mal)practices to go with alleged insurance issues.
|
Anyone like to bet me a shilling that bratfort turns out to be another one post wonder?
Hmm?
|
|
Cant help but wish grooming still meant taking a brush to a horse...
|
...Anyone like to bet me a shilling that bratfort turns out to be another one post wonder?...
His post is an attempt to groom public opinion.
|
He probably knew this report was due today...
tinyurl.com/3nxandj
Pat
|
|
Lets be honest Bradford, Burnley, Blackburn, all them nasty northern places, should they be allowed cars? Roads even?
|
Of course, Zeddo.
The brewery wagons need a road network. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any beer to put in your lemonade, you tart. :)
|
|
We don't drink that northern muck down here so rip up the roads I say.
|
|
Mmmm, wonder if there's a future in a north-south beer pipeline.
|
Yup probably, I am sure the North will appreciate decent beer when we pipe it up.
Still you will be a southerner soon enough.
|
Decent beer? You're having a giraffe.
You stick to yer Fosters me old china. Anything stronger and you can't manage to get up the old apples.
|
Question
The artical states that they made £995,915.27.
However they had to pay back each £156,000
So what happens to the remaining £683,915.27?
|
...So what happens to the remaining £683,915.27?...
In short, they've spent/successfully hidden it.
To expand on that, the prosecution calculated the income from the scam as £995,915.27.
When arrested, the brothers' assets are frozen and a financial inquiry carried out.
At sentence - nearly two years later in this case - the judge makes an order under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) to confiscate £156,000 from each.
This sum - could be cash and/or assets - is the amount prosecutors have actually been able to trace - what's left.
The POCA legislation was brought in a few years ago, aimed at the big drug dealers - the so-called 'men on the hill' - with their large houses, Range Rovers, yet no visible means of support.
POCA is powerful, prosecutors can assume piles of cash are from crime, and it's up to the criminal to prove it's not.
This reversal of the burden of proof has led, inevitably, to human rights-type complaints from defence lawyers.
|
>>POCA is powerful
+1 - is up there with the indoor smoking ban for my all-time favourite legislation
|
>> >>POCA is powerful
But ineffective, rarely recovering anything close to the full sums involved, often spending more searchiong for the money than recovering it.,
As indeed this case proves, only a third.
BUT in truth the initial sum embezeled was probably inflated anyway.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 16 Sep 11 at 08:45
|
...But ineffective, rarely recovering anything close to the full sums involved, often spending more searchiong for the money than recovering it...
If POCA was quite as ineffective as you say, the defending barristers wouldn't be squealing so loudly about it.
I've sat through many cases which involve POCA hearings, and there have been some good results and some poor ones.
There have been few massive seizures from the Mr Bigs, but very few of those guys ever get nicked, and you need to nick them for something before you can POCA them.
Lots of low-level drugs dealers have had their wings clipped a little further.
On top of the usually lenient sentence, they may lose a few grand or a cheap car, which is probably not much less than what they made, or at least retained, from dealing.
|
|
What staggers me about the A34 frauds, is that it wasn't, apparently, noticed until office workers near the RAB thought there was something fishy. I suppose the insurance companies, the claims management companies and the lawyers were all on the make, so didn't want to rock the boat. What happened to due diligence and professional standards? Did the insurance firms and others kick-backs from accidents not raise the possibility that they not only might benefit, if inadvertantly, from fraudulent claims, but the structure that evolved encouraged such claims? How many insurers and lawyers have been lifted for this - none it seems.
|
I agree with Norton.
There must be a lot of blind-eye turning, although that may not amount to criminal complicity/conspiracy.
|
Insurance company bans Bradford - Old Navy
