Staged car accidents at record high Car Insurance Today

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Staged car accidents at record high

Posted February 12th, 2011 by James Morris No Comments »

New research from LV= suggests that staged car accidents are taking place in record high numbers.

Questioning motorists involved in accidents in the past two year, the insurer found that over one in 20 believed they had been a victim of a “crash-for-cash” scam, with “rear-ending” (when a fraudster brakes sharply causing the driver behind to hit them) the most common form of entrapment.

Other popular methods include signalling another driver to merge into traffic and then crashing into their vehicle (24%), or “side-swiping” other cars (17%).

In addition, 24% of respondents believed they had been victims of unscrupulous drivers who exaggerated a claim for financial gain.

Of this group, 37% said the other driver made a personal injury claim when they were clearly unharmed, and 23% reported that the other driver claimed for vehicle damage that pre-dated the accident.

A similar number said they were wrongly blamed for the accident after the other party lied about the circumstances, with some reporting that the other driver lied that they had a passenger, who then claimed compensation, when they were, in fact, driving unaccompanied.

Over a third of motorists surveyed ended up paying out at least £2,000 through their insurance for dubious claims.

Currently, Birmingham is the UK’s crash-for-cash hot spot, followed by Liverpool, Manchester, East London and Bradford.

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