This article is about car insurance, not that I can help with your car. It’s to do with the commoditisation of car insurance because of the thirst for our data, why insurance companies are slowly waking up to its pitfalls and 2 things you can do about it whilst they slumber.

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Car Insurance Crackdown

You may have noticed that there has been a significant increase in the number of arrests of people involved in staging fake car accident over the last 6 months. Behind the scenes, this is because the government said it would crack down on whiplash claims. Most people thought this meant individuals making out they were hurt following minor shunts would find it more difficult to get compensation. In fact, the government have also put pressure on insurance companies to do something about the cartels who were taking money out of your pocket.

Organised criminals have had an easy ride with this money making venture over the past few years, because insurance companies turn a blind eye to these ficticious claims because they simply recovered most of their costs from the car insurance buying public.

Cheaper premiums come at a price

Insurance companies don’t make much profit selling car insurance, some make no profit at all. They do make money from different types of referral fees. Some referral fees are from solicitors who pay for leads for personal injury claims. Others are car hire companies who charge more to hire a car to someone who’s vehicle is damaged in an accident, than they would if you or I if were to hire. The third, usually secret referral fees, are paid to those that sell or aggregate car insurance policy data. Yes your date of birth, address, your other personal, protected information.

I have used the aggregators myself, because it is a great way to find an appropriate provider. However, it never ceases to amaze me, the level of information people are prepared to disclose, to shave £10 off their annual car insurance premium. Very few people realise that the direct marketing they receive is highly targeted, and would probably reduce if they spent less time giving their personal information to the internet. All they need do is uncheck the boxes about marketing material. Insurers would then have to work harder at reducing fake claims to make money.

Round about gangs rounded up

It will take the authorities a while to round up the highly organised car crash syndicates that have been milking insurance companies for years. I mention roundabouts, because that is a favourite for these gangs. Insurance companies took their eye off the ball. When they analyse trends in their data, they realised that ridiculous amounts of accidents have happened at the same junctions. When they look into it deeper, with the help of the authorities and CCTV, they were astonished to find that there have been zero accidents at some of the said roundabouts or junctions.

Follow the money is the usual mantra, because individuals receiving the settlements are obviously tied into the scam in some shape or form. However, with organised crime being behind these scams those receiving the payments do not exist or are the victims of Identity Theft – their ID’s have also been fraudulently claiming benefit, living in a flat with heaven knows how many people, the story goes on.

When insurance companies are not losing money they may fail to analyse trends. This is not the first time that this scenario has played itself out. In the 1990s car thefts were a huge problem, leading to some “hot hatches” becoming virtually uninsurable, because they were so easy to break into. The car industry had no motivation to improve its security because they charged their clients to repair vehicles and install the new stereos. The insurance companies charged those suffering thefts increased premiums, and car insurance premiums across the UK rocketed. It was only when the public made a racket that the government stepped in and ordered the car, and insurance, industries to do something about it. We now have largely plastic stereos embedded in cars with fantastic security features. The newest technology allows you to pay according to how safely you drive. Now that is progress.

Wrap Up: Some gangs are found with 1,000’s of fake ID’s and crossed referred them to create accidents and benefit claims. Insurers can pool their resources and cut this out and we can help ourselves by ticking the right boxes.

Top Tip

It will take some years for the dodgy claims to subside and premiums to reduce. Meanwhile the only sure way to reduce car insurance premiums is to increase the excess, here’s a link to a nifty tool that allows you to do just that. We cannot help with car insurance, because resolving claims is such a nightmare. So we decided to take advantage of this tool and provide you all with a solution. We do not ask for your inside leg measurement before offering you a quotation.