You may find it surprising to read that in 2021 there were 49,000 fraudulent motor insurance claims identified with a total value of £577 million. These figures fell by 7% and 1% respectively in comparison to 2020. This information was published by the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

We say “surprising” because you may not have been aware just how many cases of such fraud there were. Unfortunately, it is not something that is likely to go away in the short term.

It is the honest policyholder who suffers financially because of such fraudulent claims as the more that the insurance companies pay out to meet claims has an impact upon how much they charge policyholders for their cover.

Of course, motorhome owners probably also own a car so they are potentially affected with both motorhome and car insurance.

In the current economic climate here in the UK anything that can be done to contain domestic expenditure would be welcomed – better still if premiums came down.

The most common type of insurance claim fraud is motor insurance claim fraud with, as we said above, such fraud accounting for 49,000 of the 89,000 fraudulent claims identified in 2021.

In 2021, there were 18,000 property insurance claim frauds identified whereas in 2020 there were 24,000. The value of those claims amounted to £124 million with this being a 9% increase when compared with 2020.

There were 12,978 liability insurance claim frauds identified with this being 10% less than in 2020. The value of those claims in 2021 amounted to £378,000 with this being an 8% reduction in comparison to 2020.

The average amount of a fraudulent insurance claim discovered amounted to £12,283.

There are so many different types of insurance claim fraud such as ghost brokers selling fictitious motor insurance policies and crash for cash scams involving motor vehicles where a criminal drives on purpose into the back of another vehicle at say a set of traffic lights.