Bradford leads the way for “crash for cash” insurance fraud
Solicitors Journal / 27th May 2009
Bradford tops the table for “crash for cash” insurance fraud, followed by Blackburn, Oldham and Liverpool, the Insurance Fraud Bureau has said.

Other northern towns feature in the top ten – Huddersfield, Bolton and Halifax. Birmingham came sixth on the list, with the leading southern location, the London borough of Uxbridge, coming ninth.

A spokesman for the IFB, which was set up in 2006 to combat organised insurance fraud, said "cash for crash" incidents typically resulted from criminals performing unexpected and dangerous emergency stops at busy road junctions, causing innocent motorists to drive into them before claiming on their insurance policies, often for fictitious injuries.


He said that the size of criminal networks had reduced by 11 per cent in the last two years “at a time when crime is widely forecast to be on the increase due to the recession”.

The spokesman added that in areas such as Luton, where there had been joint police and IFB operations, staged accidents had declined. He added that the IFB had helped the police make almost 300 arrests since its formation in July 2006.