Whiplash fraud as unacceptable as drunk driving, survey for Aviva UK finds

People in the United Kingdom believe that falsifying injuries on a motor insurance claims is as unacceptable as drunk driving, according to new research for Aviva UK.

According to the research of 2,000 UK adults, released on Wednesday, 87% of respondents said that it is unacceptable to make a false whiplash claim, compared to 88% who say the same about drunk driving. This compares to the 79% who don’t agree with purchasing stolen goods.

The research explores Brits’ attitudes to, and behaviours around, a variety of situations and their perceived consequences, in order to better understand why the compensation culture around whiplash is so prevalent in the UK, Aviva said in a media release.

Although when it comes to spurious insurance claims, the vast majority of people believe falsifying injuries is unacceptable, 5% still think it is fine and 8% are indifferent towards it. The findings correlate with Aviva’s data that shows 11% of the personal injury claims it handles each year are “tainted by fraud,” the release said.

According to Aviva, whiplash costs motorists 2.5 billion pounds a year and adds 93 pounds to the average motor insurance premium. Aviva currently has around 14,000 suspect whiplash claims under investigation. [click image below to enlarge]

The release noted that recently it successfully challenged a 250,000-pound insurance claim by 46 passengers on a ‘party bus,’ where each filed individual whiplash claims as a result of a low-speed incident causing only 70 pounds worth of damage to the vehicle. Also, on April 15, semi-professional soccer player Gary Burnett was convicted to four months in prison, suspended for one year, for contempt of court following a false whiplash claim against Aviva.

“It’s clear a minority are lured by the incentive of ‘easy cash’ that exists within the motor claims compensation culture,” Rob Townend, claims director with Aviva UK General Insurance, said in the release. “In the end, we all pay for this through inflated premiums, not to mention the wider cost to society of this unhealthy whiplash claims culture.”