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An increasing number of insurance applicants telling lies

January 13, 2009 by admin  
Filed under News, News-Insurance

1 Comment

Every year many people apply for a variety of different types of insurance cover in the UK, from home and car insurance cover to life and income insurance cover. However, according to recently released figures there has been a sharp increase in the number of people that are telling lies on their insurance application forms in order to get a better deal on the cost of their insurance cover, and officials have stated that it is the honest consumers that are going to end up paying for these lies.

The Association of British Insurers said that a growing number of consumers were lying on their application forms in order to get cheaper cover, and amongst the lies that were commonly being told on applications were lies about motor convictions, failure to disclose a young driver as the main driver of a vehicle, and lies about how much the applicant drinks or smokes, which can affect the cost of cover such as life and health insurance.

Officials from the ABI said that the lies that are being told by some applicants are resulting in honest policyholders having to pay an average £30 a year more in premiums. What’s more those that do lie on their insurance application forms risk having their cover invalidated if the lies are found out, which could well happen in the event that the policyholder has to make a claim.

One official from the ABI said: “Honesty is the only policy. Cheating to get cheaper insurance puts your cover in jeopardy, with potentially disastrous consequences. Being truthful and shopping around will mean that your insurance delivers when you need it, and that you get the best possible deal.”

Tags: finance, driver, insurance fraud, insurance lies, cost

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Comments

One Response to “An increasing number of insurance applicants telling lies”
  1. Anonymous says:
    January 30, 2009 at 7:33 pm

    What about the lies that insurers tell?

    I had an accident which was not my fault. Less than twenty four hours after reporting it, the Insurer had agreed with the other party’s Insurer that I would be held responsible. No interview, no form filling, nothing. For almost a year, they delayed and talked about how my “legal insurance” was for their benefit; how I should not consult legally and so on. Perhaps it was simply that the call centre staff were badly trained.

    It ended up with a solicitor telephoning me for three hours and expaling that the insurance company had privately admitted they messed up very badly and then spent a year lying about it. Would I like to help them investigating the other party in a suspected fraud?

    The answer of “No – now give me back my no claims” did not go down well. When the solicitor asked why I would not help I explained: “Would they insure me if I lied? Would they trust me if they thought I had lied?” It was only at that point that he mentioned he was there to represent my interests as much as the Insurers. He was not best pleased when I pointed out that the Insurer had said the legal cover was for their benefit not mine.

    Currently I am happy with the final outcome. But I wonder how many other people Insurers treat this badly? How much research does the Insurance industry carry out regarding Insurers bad behaviour?

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