Lesley Campbell
ANYONE considering taking a spectacular fall on a loose paving stone then lodging a spurious insurance claim should now think twice. More than £3.5m a week in insurance fraud is now being detected by the industry using a raft of new measures.
Revelations of fraud continue to come from the usual sources: the spurned wife who reports her departed husband for exaggerating injuries in a car accident; or the man who claims to have been laid low by a back injury shown collecting an award as the top goal scorer for his local football team.
But information on possible fraudsters is coming increasingly from the new database which allows insurers to compare information. As a result, the detection rate is now 95% up on 2002 levels.
The Association of British Insurers, whose members make up two-thirds of the general insurance industry, have justly hailed the new figures as a victory.