Since the new FCA regulatory body populated last year – it did so with the vision of placing customer care at the forefront of its policies. During the Authority's commercial claims investigations over the next 12-months, it intends to look at whether or not a customers’ expectations are met during the process in relation to upholding trust throughout the financial sector: 'We propose to look into the key risks in complex distribution chains and the mixed responsibilities in them, including cultural rise relating to product design, sales and post sales handling'.
In order to instigate economic stability throughout the country and to restore faith into the financial sector, the FCA presents undeniable possibilities. In order however, to maximise the perspective, one should also consider that fraud currently costs the UK over £2 billion each year.
As a business owner who understands the importance of client/corporate relationships – I also understand that as per the ABI, fraud adds an estimated £50 per year to each insurance policy; organised insurance claims alone account for £392m and 1 in 7 personal injury claims are suspected crash-for-cash claims.
The desire is that every party is treated as fairly as possible and the best way of captivating this is by reviewing both sides of the scale. Law abiding insurance consumers should not be paying for fraud – it’s as simple as that. But until fraud has a decreasing success rate the inevitability is that insurance will continue to increase.
With the ever increasing amount of fraudulent claims, insurance companies are considered demonised due to failed insurance claims – the investigation process is something that now has to take into consideration possible cases of fraud. This is to ensure that every party involved is treated fairly.
Within the latter half of the past decade there has been a significant increase in the temptation to “bend truth” in an attempt to lower insurance premiums and when such practices arise they are risking paying a few pounds less for something that’s worth nothing.
In a recent poll conducted by Constructaquote.com, over 27% of van drivers have tampered with facts in order to lower premiums – an even higher number said that they would consider doing so in the future. This revelation means that there could potentially be more drivers on British roads who don’t hold valid insurance; in the event of an accident these individuals would find it very difficult to make a successful claim and could potentially struggle to find future cover.
At Constructaquote.com we have concluded that the most common “honesty bends” are mileage; parking post codes and where the van is kept i.e garage, drive etc. Although this could reduce premiums in the short term; from a long term perspective this will only result in less successful claims and more expensive insurance premiums. It really is a vicious circle.