While the vast majority of insurance customers follow the law, a small number of people will sometimes give false details to inflate a claim - or will make one up entirely. Honest customers will often have to bear the cost of this fraud, and the Insurance Fraud Bureau, reporting on statistics released by the Association of British Insurers (ABI), claims that on average a staggering £50 of each annual motor insurance premium goes towards the cost of insurance fraud. That's £50 out of your pocket.
Helping our customers
At Tesco, we try to avoid passing the cost of fraud on to our genuine customers. Insurance fraud is a criminal offence, and we are fighting hard to prevent it. We have implemented tools and processes, including software, data and fraud intelligence-sharing arrangements, and have dedicated fraud resources and external fraud specialists. The aim of this is to:
- Detect fraudsters, and prevent them from obtaining cover in the first instance, when making adjustments to policies or at time of renewal
- Detect and act on any suspicious policy activity by policyholders
- Detect and act on fraudulent claims made by policyholders and third parties
We're also taking further steps to protect our customers by validating no claims discounts, vehicle details and additional drivers. To do this, we may ask you to provide proof of your no claims discount along with copies of your V5C (vehicle registration certificate) and driving licence (including counterpart) for all drivers.
Understanding insurance fraud
To help you understand what constitutes fraud, here are some examples of scenarios we will treat as acts of policy fraud.
Where a policyholder deliberately:
- Withholds details of previous motoring or criminal convictions, motor claims and or actions by insurers to cancel or void an insurance policy
- Claims to have a full valid driving licence, when this does not exist or when a driving disqualification is in place
- Tells us that they have a no claims bonus, when no such entitlement exists
- Claims to be the main user of a car, when the true main user is someone else, such as a son or daughter (also known as fronting)
- Conceals the true address of the person taking insurance cover
- Provides false details of the usual overnight location of a vehicle
- Provides false details of the usage of the car (eg, claims the mileage covered is lower)
- Provides a false answers to the quotation questions (eg, date of birth or occupation)
Our action against fraud
If we find evidence of fraud, the policy will be declared void from the time the fraudulent act took place. This means that in the event of fraud the policy will be treated as though it never existed, so the driver may not be covered in the event of an accident.
We will also share our data for fraud prevention purposes and this will include the wider financial services industry, such as banks and building societies. We don't believe in allowing insurance fraudsters to hide and continue their dishonest activities.
How can you help?
If you suspect or have knowledge of any insurance fraud impacting on Tesco Insurance, email us at cst@tescoims.com. Reports of fraud are in strictest confidence, and may be made anonymously if necessary. You can also make reports to the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) - one of our partners - which manages the Cheatline. This is a freephone and online fraud reporting facility, where suspicions or knowledge of any type of fraud can be reported by calling 0345 673 1954 or making a report online.