Dubious whiplash incidents are only the tip of the complex and costly insurance iceberg that is driving up premiums
MY CAR was damaged recently. It was in a car park and I was somewhere else. I claimed on my own insurance, and was directed by them to a repair garage which took my mobile number, ostensibly to contact me when the car was ready. They did not. Instead they sold on my details to a claims management company. I know this because I received a text a week later telling me I had been in an accident and was entitled to £2,750. Coincidentally, the insurance industry blamed a projected rise of 13 per cent in premiums on the rise in personal injury claims.
Whiplash claims now make up 70 per cent of all motor accident claims. Typically, neck and back symptoms might last three to six months, with courts awarding damages of £1,500-£3,000, so the claims themselves are not large. However, whiplash is an injury which has few objective signs and there is a clear temptation for fraud and exaggeration. Evidence was placed in 2011 before the Transport Select Committee that the insurance industry loses £2.1 billion per annum to fraudulent claims, whether by “cash for crash” staged accidents or invention of symptoms. The industry presents a story of the honest citizen paying the price for a system milked by the unscrupulous.
Read More - http://www.scotsman.com/news/ronnie_conway_why_personal_injury_claims_end_up_costing_every_single_one_of_us_1_2072054
