Motor insurance fraud on increase
Motor insurance fraud went up in the first nine months of this year compared with the last two years, according to motor fraud insurance experts.
TCF Corporate, which provides outsourced management solutions to the insurance industry, said the number of fraudulent theft claims had doubled since 2007.
The statistics come from a sample of 8,000 claims investigated by TCF in the first nine months of the year on insurers' behalf. Of those investigated, fraud was detected in 22.9% of cases.
This is a marked increase on 2007 and 2008. In the full 12 months of 2008, 18.6% of the motor theft claims referred to TCF were found to be fraudulent. Meanwhile, only 11.25% of those investigated in 2007 were fraudulent.
TCF said: "In the first nine months of 2009, fraud detection rates are already double the rate of detection for 2007. Overall it can be seen that insurance fraud remains on a continued upward trend."