Half of whiplash claims are bogus: Faked injuries driving a £1billion-a-year racket

Half of all whiplash claims from car crashes are fraudulent, insurance experts have told MPs.
About 50 per cent – and possibly as many as 60 per cent – of whiplash cases are bogus because the symptoms are ‘too easy to fake’, they say.
Insurance firms are also being exploited by a ‘claims manufacturing industry’ that has ‘gone into overdrive’ to entice drivers into making easy claims.
The claims are typically worth £2,500 a time and earn fees for claims firms and lawyers. Yet the medical and legal tests to weed out fakers are not sufficiently stringent and the threshold for settling a claim is ‘too low’, MPs were told.

if correct, it means that at least half the estimated £2billion a year paid out in 550,000 whiplash claims is fraudulent, making it a £1billion-a-year scam. The disclosure confirms the UK’s dubious reputation as the ‘whiplash capital of the world’.

 

One reason for the ‘whiplash epidemic’ is that it is cheaper to settle than to fight cases suspected to be fraudulent, say experts.
Fraudsters are also landing insurance payouts with ‘cash for crash’ scams, where they stage car crashes and then submit false claims for personal injury and damage to their vehicles.
Insurance experts already calculate that whiplash claims boosted by ‘no-win, no-fee’ claims firms are adding £90 to the average car insurance policy.

The scale of the scandal in England and Wales is much greater than in countries such as Germany, where lawyers’ fees are limited. The damning evidence came in testimony to the Commons transport select committee from David Brown, of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and David Powell, of the Lloyd’s insurance market association.
Mr Brown said whiplash fraud is a ‘huge problem’, which has rocketed since 2007.
He added: ‘It is highly likely that the UK is the whiplash capital of the world.’
Claims have soared, despite a fall in accidents, because people are ‘motivated’ by the ease of claiming in financially tough times, he said. Between 10 and 60 per cent of whiplash claims were ‘exaggerated, misrepresented or fraudulent’.
Pressed on the figures by MPs, Mr Brown said the most likely total was near the upper level – or about 50 per cent of claims being fraudulent.

Mr Powell agreed the 50 per cent figure for bogus claims is ‘plausible’. He said members of his association ‘suspect a lot of claims are exaggerated or fraudulent but they are not able to prove it’.
He added: ‘It’s so easy to fake, it’s so easy to exaggerate. There is a claims manufacturing industry which has developed over the last ten to 15 years. It has gone into overdrive.’
Asked for a solution, Mr Powell said: ‘If you have a more stringent test, you will get more of the fraudulent claims challenged and more fraudsters put off.’
He noted how few claims were made in Germany, adding: ‘It’s nothing to do with German necks being stronger than British necks.’
German lawyers receive ‘small beer’ fees of about £300 for a compensation claim, while British lawyers earn £1,500.