Helen Jones – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of whiplash claims each year which are fraudulent; and if he will place in the Library the evidence used to produce this estimate.

Dominic Raab

Information on prosecutions for fraudulent whiplash claims is not held centrally, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The Government remains concerned about the number and cost of personal injury claims and the impact they have on motor insurance premiums. At 760,000 (of which 690,000 were for whiplash) in 2014/15, personal injury motor claims volumes are still at historically high levels, being some 50% higher than in 2006 when there were around 520,000 such claims.

The Insurance Fraud Taskforce published their final report on 18 January which was supportive of the Government’s proposals to tackle fraudulent and unnecessary claims. The Government will consider their recommendations closely.

The Association of British Insurers regularly publishes data on the number of detected fraudulent claims made, and the most recent published data can be found here: https://www.abi.org.uk/News/News-releases/2015/07/You-could-not-make-up-Savings-honest-customers-insurers-expose-3-6-million-worth-insurance-frauds

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