Over 1,500 'insurance fraudsters' reported

Over 1,500 individual cases of alleged fraud have been reported to the insurance fraud hotline set up by the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) since it was introduced a year ago.

The IIF said today it has received over 3,000 calls reporting insurance breaches. It is estimated that fraudulent claims cost the insurance industry up to €100 million annually.

The calls came from a variety of sources, including family members, friends, co-workers, employees and neighbours. Two-thirds came from men.

A total of 61 per cent of calls related to motor cases; 22 per cent related to non-motor personal injury; 9 cent related to property, and 8 per cent were  about other types of claims.

Those contacting the hotline reported various activities, including alleged staging of accidents to make a claim; inflating claims following genuine accidents; making false declarations to get insurance; inflating the value of insured property or getting cover for items that do not exist, and  taking out multiple policies to cover the same risk to make multiple claims.

The IIF chief executive Mr Michael Kemp, said the public response showed they had "had enough" of fraudsters. "They realise that it is not just faceless institutions that are picking up the tab every time someone makes a fraudulent claim but they themselves as honest policyholders through higher insurance premiums," he said.

Mr Kemp also called on the Government to enacted the proposed Civil Liability and Courts Bill as soon as possible so that people making false or exaggerated claims will face stiffer criminal penalties.

The lo-call telephone number for Insurance Confidential is 1890 333 333.