Crash for cash hotspots revealed
Birmingham has been named the crash for cash capital of England.
Research carried out by Aviva found that of its 3,000 crash for cash claims last year, a staggering 25% were in Birmingham, with many of those in the B11 area of Sparbrook, Sparkhill and Tyseley.
North London, east London and north west London were also in the top 10, alongside Leeds, Harrow, Bradford, Luton, Coventry and Oldham. Other emerging hotspots included areas of Worcester, Margate and Leicester.
However, Aviva did record a two per cent drop in claims during 2015 compared to 2014.
Tom Gardiner, head of fraud at Aviva, said, ‘Induced accidents now account for nearly half of all organised motor fraud we detect. Crash for cash does not just push up premiums for genuine customers, it puts innocent motorists at risk.
‘It is also a significant drain on scarce public resources such as ambulance, police and A&E time, all of which are wasted on these entirely bogus claims.’
Neil Thomas is a former West Midlands Police detective now independently investigating fraudulent crashes. He said, ‘Birmingham is quite an obvious choice. It has been a hotspot for a number of years. There’s the high volume of traffic and also the road network.
“In any big city there are going to be genuine traffic collisions. The fraudster can then get away with having staged incidents because people won’t notice them.’
