My daughter and I run a small business delivering livestock feed in the South East using Land Rovers and trailers. We each cover around 30,000 miles per year. Some months ago my daughter returned to the yard and reported a 'strange' incident involving her vehicle and two other cars on the M23. The upshot of the incident was that the driver of the second of the two other vehicles seemed to indicate to my daughter that damage to the front of her vehicle had been caused by the rear of my daughters trailer (whilst she was travelling at close to 60mph). The other driver did not stop, but sped away.

After hearing my daughter's report I immediately called my insurers and ensured that they logged the date and time of the call and made a brief note of the incident. Some days later I had a letter from the police suggesting that the driver of my vehicle had failed to stop/report a road traffic accident. A statement was sent to the police along with the driver's name, and again when my daughter received communication from the police. The police are taking no further action.

As a result of my daughter’s detailed statement recorded at the time, and my notification to the insurers before the fraudulent claim was lodged (which includes personal injury claims), the whole incident is being treated as a fraudulent claim from the outset. The moral of this story - notify your insurers immediately of anything suspicious so that they have a chance to properly investigate the circumstances.