Industry news roundup: week ended 13 Oct 2014:
Fraudsters trying to run scams on car insurance companies are being caught left and right at the moment, which should hopefully keep motoring costs down.
Nobody likes the idea of freeloaders faking accidents in order to get big payouts from car accident claims, but it’s been going on for years. Insurance scams are awful for everyone, as with each bogus personal injury compensation payout that leaves the coffers of insurers we all have to foot the bill in the form of hiked insurance premiums, and I for one am tired of it. That’s what makes stories recounting how scammers and fraudsters are caught so brilliant and entertaining to me.
The news was absolutely filled with them this week, and I was just chuffed to bits to read each one. One of my favourites recounts how a fraudster who tried to walk off with £75,000 from a whiplash claim got shut down hard after dashcam footage from the lorry he cut off exposed his scam to the public – and saw his ill-gotten gains go up in smoke.
Now I’m not one for invasive surveillance but I’m all for these whole dashboard-mounted cameras. If they were fitted to every lorry and HGV on British roadways the amount of of insurance fraud in the UK would surely go down, and with fewer personal injury claims being paid out by the nation’s insurers I’d like to think that insurance rates for everyone would drop like a stone. Meanwhile I’m also happy to hear that bogus accident claims made by fraudsters on foot are also being looked into as well; the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department of the London Police just announced it had nicked 11 scammers that had possibly been trumping up claims in the wake of bogus ‘slip and trip’ injuries.
I’m absolutely gratified to hear how so many people are being caught red-handed. These thick pillocks need to be taken down a peg if you ask me, and I’m glad that it’s happening in a very public way that I can only hope will result in massive fines and more than just a bit of jail time for all the individuals involved. My hat’sa off to the IFED for tirelessly dragging these bastards out into the light of day where they can be disposed of properly.