Insurance Fraud Adds £50 to Premiums

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Latest figures from The Association of British Insurers (ABI) show that fraudulent insurance claims are costing honest drivers an extra £50 on their policies. In the last year 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 there were 180,675 attempts to make fraudulent applications for motor insurance last year in a bid to get a cheaper policy.

The most common cases involved drivers lying about the amount of no claims bonus they actually had, while another popular method was to lie about the main driver on the policy, a tactic known as 'fronting'. There were also thousands of cases where previous claims or convictions were not disclosed to their insurance company. In one such case a motorist was jailed for three years for not informing his insurance comapny of four previous claims and an unspent motoring conviction.

The insurance industry is hoping a data-sharing programme, called MyLicence, would enable the them to obtain better information on drivers from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) by forcing drivers to reveal their 16-character driving licence number and allow them to obtain better information. The industry estimates this would save each motorist at least £15 on thei policy.