Investigation saves £1m in payouts
A ‘cash for crash’ fraud ring which operated in South Liverpool has been smashed by the fraud team at Hill Dickinson and its client Equity Claims Limited, saving more than £1m in payouts.
Liverpool Crown Court found that four out of the five claims that reached trial had been brought fraudulently as a result of the evidence provided by Equity and Hill Dickinson.
The court heard how the fraud ring had conspired to contrive a string of accidents in the South Liverpool area for financial gain using personal injury claims.
The claims were challenged at a nine day trial earlier this year and judgment was handed down recently.
A number of other claims with coinciding features had either being discontinued or withdrawn before trial.
Hill Dickinson and Equity’s suspicions arose after a thorough analysis of the involvement of the claimants and defendants in the accidents, and from the specific circumstances.
The law firm’s counter-fraud intelligence database, Netfoil and other databases linked the accidents and participants and links were also established through investigating the activities of the participants on social networking sites.
The key link was three females who between them had been involved in 27 collisions over a two-and-a-half year period all in a small area of South Liverpool. They often had accidents in self drive hire vehicles, arousing further concern about the legitimacy of the claims.
Likewise, a surprisingly high number of drivers and passengers were involved in these collisions – 155, of which 99 occupants were present in third party vehicles and therefore most likely to be in a position to make a claim.
Other hallmarks of fraudulent claims were also clearly identified including the absence of photographs of any of the accidents, no emergency services attending at any accident, no independent witnesses and no objective evidence of physical injury.
Having heard the evidence His Honour Judge Wood QC referred to the level of coincidence between the claims and relationships as “stretching credulity”.
The judge considered the individual cases and found there to be a number of factors including the implausibility of the justification for journeys given by the claimants, their evasiveness on the witness stand, discrepancies in their evidence, and the coincidental involvement of a recovery and repair company.
In addition to the finding of fraud, Equity succeeded on its counterclaims in recovering the money already paid out for the claims.
Equity Claims Ltd head of fraud Steve Jackson said: “Equity will not tolerate fraudulent claims made at the expense of our honest policyholders and this result indicates our determination to defend them in the courts and recover the costs involved.”
Hill Dickinson head of fraud Peter Oakes said: “Justice has been achieved and claimants were ordered to pay the defendant’s costs. Identifying this fraud ring and preventing the payout of further associated claims has secured significant savings for all those involved. One could speculate that if all 155 passengers’ claims had been successful – at an average of £2,000 per claim and with solicitors’ costs – savings of over £1m have been realised.”
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