Aviva detects one crash for cash claim every 3 hours

Aviva detected more than 3,000 organised crash for cash claimants last year – equivalent to one every three hours.

And one-in-four of these claims occurred in Birmingham.

The number of induced accidents detected by Aviva, where fraudsters target innocent motorists for collisions to claim whiplash compensation was down only 2% from 2014’s record levels.

But the number of bogus or staged accidents, when two damaged cars are brought together to make it look like a collision, fell by 40%, as tougher fraud prevention tools at the point of sale have stopped fraudsters accessing Aviva’s products.

Motor fraud remains the largest source of fraud detected by Aviva, representing 60% of all claims fraud with a value of £58m.

One-in-nine whiplash claims submitted to Aviva is tainted by fraud, and Aviva has more than 17,000 suspicious whiplash claims under investigation, with 4,000 motor injury claims linked to known fraud rings.

“We remain very concerned that fraudsters continue to put their own greed ahead of innocent motorists’ safety. Our figures show induced accidents now account for nearly half of all organised motor fraud we detect,” said Aviva’s head of Fraud, Tom Gardiner.

Regional Hotspots

Birmingham cemented its position as the nation’s crash for cash capital by increasing its share of claims from 19% in 2014 to 25% last year. Aviva detected more induced accidents in Birmingham than the rest of the “Top 10” locations combined.

Top 10 Locations for induced accidents in 2015

Manchester, Slough and Uxbridge featured in Aviva’s 2014 Top 10 hotspots table, but have dropped out of the top 10 areas for crash for cash in 2015

The worst postcode in the country for induced accidents is B11, which, taken on its own, would rank as the third worst city in the UK for crash for cash, highlighting how concentrated the problem is in some parts of Birmingham.

Elsewhere, WR5 (Worcester), CT9 (Margate) and LE3 (Leicester) all feature in the top postcodes for crash for cash. This could indicate that the problem is moving to new areas, and shows that crash for cash is not confined to merely a handful of locations, Aviva said.