Thirty-five people have been convicted of fraud for making more than £5m in bogus insurance claims.
They set up their own accident management company to steal more efficiently.
No wonder premiums keep rising - we should all think of these gentlemen when we next renew.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377010/Cash-crash-scam-cheated-insurers-millions-revealed-conviction-35-fraudsters.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
In a separate development, I see third-party insurance is on the way out.
Several insurers no longer offer it.
Premiums are often higher than comprehensive because risk assessors think third party customers are more likely to crash.
Here's a quote from Ian Crowder of the AA: "Motor insurance providers have gradually been taking third party, fire and theft cover off the market over the last three or four years, although the process has speeded up recently.
"It's largely down to the fact the people who typically take out the insurance are young drivers, with old cars and providers no longer want to insure them as they represent a higher claims risk.
"Another reason is the cost of it is now very similar and often even greater than that for comprehensive cover."
Crowder added third party, fire and theft cover could completely disappear from the market in as little as five years.
Last edited by: Iffy on Mon 18 Apr 11 at 06:02
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Unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg, and the cost of investigating is high. We need to ban no win/no fee lawyers - or premiums will rise another 40% again next year.
On the third party insurance front, I notice that many of the fully comp deals are not as fully comp as they used to be - if you have no windscreen cover and £500-£1000 excess (as seemed to be common when I was asking for a quote recently) then for a low value car, they are pretty well the same as third party anyway.
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Let's hope when sentenced that the judge orders reparations, compensation and full costs, on top of punitive prison terms, though won't be holding me breath...money drives those of the persuation, that's the way to hurt them.
Agree with Tigger, it's a small drop in the ocean but better than nowt and well done to those who investigated presumably without giving the game away.
Whilst insurance companies pay out willy nilly without putting a fight up this sort of thing will continue, take a few like this through the court system and go for full legal costs and compo (mammon, their one true god) putting a good number of them on the streets and things just might change.
It's no good waiting for govt measures, a waste of time, get tough you insurers.
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>> people who typically take out the insurance are young drivers, with old cars
>> the cost of it is now very similar and often even greater than that for comprehensive cover
I like the idea of comprehensive cover, but most of the cars I've had have been worth buttons. The standard damage excess seems to be £500, so why would I pay extra to insure a £300 car fully comp? That's the only reason I've gone for TPF&T before.
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I've found that fully comp tends to be a little bit cheaper than third party, hence the worthless Fiesta is insured fully comp.
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Is this the same group of individuals featured on a BBC TV programme a while back who regularly and deliberately caused a following vehicle driver to run into the back of their car at a roundabout?
If so it originally came to light because a tea or cleaning lady working at a firm whose premises overlooked the roundabout began to realise that two or three of the cars hit from behind were always involved, along with the drivers; as a result she tipped off the police.
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Car crash scammers convicted - Tigger
