In the case of my insurance who did nothing but drag their feet until they got a whiplash claim, and then sent an investigator who inspected my car to see if there was a worn tyre or it wasn't taxed, and only then discussed the accident and went to the scene and took a formal statement, It is hard for me to think other than they were not interested until i told them i had renewed elsewhere, not costing me any more, allowing for loss of ncd and that if they didn't care neither would I. At that point the suitably outraged customer services manager (yes i got that far) suddenly e-mailed me to remind me of my duty to assist them in refuting the 3rd party claim. and finally they wrote to the 3rd party to insist that if they wished to proceed they MUST issue court proceedings.

I pay my road tax on time, i insure my car, I declare everything purposely and keep copies of online forms and e-mails, and guess what, I am treated no better than if I was on t'fiddle.

I am sure that the vast majority of people are honest in their insurance declarations, certainly not the 50% fraudulent that the manager claimed.

''Enough said. What do others think?''

That might well be the normal experience with many insurers.

It could not possibly be further from my experiences of dealing and claiming from NFU, there you are a personal customer and the local office form a relationship of mutual trust with you.

Total honesty and straight dealing are the order of the day, but then i deal in that way myself so maybe they learn who their customers are.

I had a total loss write off when SWMBO wrote of my Landcruiser, they paid me out over top book due to the first class pre accident condition (all on engineers report), no haggling and cheque virtually the next day.

We had a lightning strike nearby which took out a number of electrical goods, no visit no haggling, i replaced the goods with equivalents and they paid me out after receiving the receipts.

No crafty upgrades by me, no extra items that i felt like renewing.

Honour is a fast disappearing word in this country, not surprsing really, few would know what it was if it bit them, look at our motley snouts in the trough politicians for proof of that, you can buy Honours but you can't buy honour.

There are insurance companies that still deal the old way, you have to find them and they won't be the cheapest and they probably won't feature on some comparison site.

Edited by gordonbennet on 17/11/2011 at 01:57

It's sadly true that the first thing most insurers will do is try and find a way to wriggle out of paying up, however straight you might have been with them. I can appreciate that there is a multitude of fraud out there, but much of it could be quashed if the industry would just get together and get some measures put in place. Anybody found guilty of any form of insurance fraud - and I mean intentional fraud, not just insignificant oversights - should be refused any further insurance for life. Driving without cover would then effectively mean that you will never legally drive a car ever again. Two strikes should result in an immediate prison sentence. The practise of fines which add up to less than a year's cover is truly pathetic and needs arresting sooner rather than later.

The same condition should apply to fraudulent injury claims and staged accidents. What would also help is a legal obligation to carry one's driving licence at all times when in charge of a vehicle, and produce it to the other party at the scene of an accident. No licence would mean the police being called, and the popular scam of crashing somebody else's car into innocent road users would become far more likely to result in detection.

Legislation is required urgently to stop the national sham of injury claims, with an obvious solution being for the claimant to stand the risk of their legal costs in the event of a failure to win the case. Trading in the telephone numbers of crash 'victims' needs to be banned. The ever popular 'whiplash' needs to be declared an injury of no consequence for which compensation is not applicable. Take a few days off work and get on with it, it won't kill you. Indeed, any alleged injury which mysteriously fails to show up at the time should be treated with the upmost scepticism. We need to move away from the mentality that any time another member of the human race coughs or sneezes we are entitled to be compensated. Accidents happen and are a risk we wilfully accept when travelling by car. I for one would have no problems with non-serious injuries not being 'compensatable' if it kept my premiums down. You could always walk, fly or travel by train instead.

I tend to feel that most of the opportunisitc fraud is related to household insurance, and apparently pets, and I can't help conclude that if it was really that bad then insurers would simply pull out of these markets. Instead, we see them desperately begging for our business at every opportunity. They are cearly continuing to earn money, and no doubt plenty of it, which does beg the question of whether it's really quite as bad as they'd like us all to believe.

Edited by happy polo on 18/11/2011 at 09:04