Rise in cost of insurance premiums due to frauds

New insurance industry figures show the increasingly damaging impact of fraud on the cost of cover. But providers are pledging to crack down on bogus claims.
Britain’s insurers are losing £2.3 million every day to fraud, new figures from the Association of British Insurers show.
Bogus claims on car insurance policies account for almost half the total, at £1.12 million a day – more than £400 million a year.
But the most common type of fraud relates to home contents policies, with scores of daily claims for accidental damage that has, in fact, been caused deliberately.
The ABI said fraud added an average of £44 a year on to each household’s overall insurance bill.
Spokesman Nick Starling said: “Insurance cheats do not prosper – they can expect to get caught, face problems getting future insurance and risk getting a criminal record.
“The majority of customers are honest and rightly object to subsidising the cheats. This is why 2011 will see insurers intensify their war against the cheats, to protect their honest customers.”
Among the examples of fraud recorded by the ABI was a claim for theft of DVDs which were yet to be released in the UK.
Another man claimed for compensation after tripping over a loose paving slab, only for investigators to find his injuries had been sustained after being hit with a baseball bat in a fight.
A further individual told his insurer his car had been damaged while parked near his home. In fact the vehicle had been involved in a collision while racing at the Nürburgring track in Germany.