Police Crackdown on Staged Car Insurance Scams

We buy car insurance to help protect our investment: our car. Since many newer cars cost well into the thousands of pounds they are not cheap to replace or repair, insurance helps cover the costs that are associated with owning a car and can help make initial impossible costs bearable for the majority of motorists.

The trouble is that sometimes there are people out there set on abusing the system and for a quick bit of cash they will sacrifice a lifetime of expensive insurance in the future. Some unscrupulous people will often make false claims on their insurance to either make a quick buck or get a better car should their current one be destroyed.

Many of these people believe that the car insurance companies paying out means that it is a victimless crime, we pay our premiums every year, we should make a claim or two to “get our money’s worth”. This is completely false as the reason many people, especially younger people, cannot afford the high prices of insurance premiums is the number of false claims as well as drivers who do not have insurance getting into bumps and scrapes.

The police have said that car insurance fraud has become such a big problem that there are even gangs “staging” accidents to make their dodgy claims appear legitimate. A recent operation in Greater Manchester has discovered one of these gangs numbering eighteen people who will appear before Stockport Magistrates Court.

There have been other similar cases in the Manchester area such as families driving around with a broken brake light, the car then brakes suddenly at a roundabout where an unsuspecting mark ploughs into the back of the car in front, the family then files for compensation all conveniently suffering from whiplash for a generous payout.

It’s exactly for these reasons that car insurance premiums are so high and continue to rise, with these increased claims then it makes cheap car insurance impossible as the insurance firms are less likely to view average, safe drivers in a fair light. When large scale crime organisations like these insurance fraudsters get caught then it makes roads not only safer for the rest of us but will bring down our car insurance as a bonus hopefully.