Episode 7 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud has reached epidemic levels in the UK.

It's costing us more than £1.3 billion every year.

That's almost 3.6 million every day.

Deliberate crashes, bogus personal injuries, even phantom pets.

The fraudsters are risking more and more to make a quick killing and

every year it's adding around £50 to your insurance bill.

But insurers are fighting back,

exposing just under 15 fake claims every hour.

Armed with covert surveillance systems...

Subject out of the vehicle.

..sophisticated data analysis techniques...

-..and a number of highly-skilled police units...

-Police, don't move.

-Stay where

-you are! ..they are catching the criminals red-handed.

Just don't lie to us!

All those conmen, scammers and

cheats on the fiddle are now caught in the act and Claimed And Shamed.

Today, a group of friends that deliberately crash their cars for money are exposed.

It quickly became apparent that she had lied to us when she told

us that she did not know the other driver.

A claimant's attempt to dupe a new device from her phone insurers is blocked.

And something stinks when a high-end men's tailor claims his stock is

spoilt by sewage.

It became apparent that some of this documentation had, in fact, been

created by Mr L on his own computer.

More than 35 million of us get behind the wheel in the UK.

That adds up to a huge number of car policies and a staggering

£17.1 million is paid out in private car claims every day.

Statistics like that can be appetising for fraudsters and opportunists alike.

So, insurance companies are fighting a constant battle to identify

the genuine claims from those that have been exaggerated,

completely made up, or have even been the result of deliberate crashes.

The UK highways are some of the busiest in the world, with motorists

clocking-up an estimated 314 billion miles every year.

Mark Chiappino, at Direct Line Group,

has made it his business to bust the claims of fraudsters.

He was passed what looked like a fairly typical rear-end shunt accident to review.

Our customer, Ffion Owen,

notified us that she had had an accident,

driving her Ford Focus into the rear of an Audi A4,

driven by Faizal Saidi.

This accident occurred on a residential street in Liverpool.

On the face of it, this appeared to be a genuine accident.

This is the type of accident that happens hundreds, if not thousands,

of times every day on British roads.

It may have been an everyday occurrence,

but the timing was a little convenient

as Owen, who had rear-ended Saidi's car,

only had a week before her policy was due to expire.

We were subsequently notified of eight personal injury claims from

the occupants of the Audi and from Ffion Owen's own passengers.

These claims totalled approximately £38,000.

With only a week left on her policy and a high number of personal injury

claims submitted, suspicions were raised,

which led investigators to probe a little deeper.

We asked her, as a matter of routine whether she knew any of the occupants of

the other vehicles and she said that she didn't.

When the injury claims were presented,

we carried out further routine searches.

Our enquiries via social media led us to discover that not only did

Ffion Owen know Faizal Saidi,

but that she also featured in several photographs of the two of them together.

So, they had been proven to have exchanged more than paintwork previously.

It was damning evidence.

It quickly became apparent that she had lied to us when she told us that

she did not know the other driver.

Having been on the end of a barefaced lie,

Mark's team were keen to separate fact from fiction.

We started investigating this accident as a suspicious claim.

We instructed a forensic engineer to examine both vehicles and gather

further evidence.

And it would reveal some very curious discoveries.

The claim was presented to us as if Ffion Owen had driven into the back

of the Audi. When the Audi was examined,

we found damage on both the rear wings and on the rear of the vehicle.

This is damage that defies the law of physics.

The clue is in the title.

Rear-end shunt.

But those laws of physics continued to be broken.

There were screw heads protruding from one of the vehicles.

If there had been a single accident,

you would expect to find one corresponding mark on the other

damaged vehicle. However, he found not one, not two, not even three,

but four corresponding marks on the other vehicle,

indicating that the vehicles had been collided at least four times.

Yeah, you don't have to be a forensic engineer to figure out that

Owen's story was no longer adding up.

Once we realised that a serious attempt had been made to defraud Direct Line of £38,000,

we passed the details immediately to

the police insurance fraud enforcement department at Ifed.

Ifed snapped up the case and were eager to build on the investigative work

Direct Line had already done.

There was already quite a lot of evidence there.

The circumstances were broadly quite suspicious.

If these cars had genuinely crashed together,

there would only be one impact.

And also there shouldn't really be any kind of links between the

occupants of either vehicle.

With the connection between the drivers of

both vehicles established,

Oliver had to identify and move in on any other suspects.

When we looked at all the information we had about this case,

the most important thing for us was to focus down on

the key orchestrators. So, Faizal Saidi was driving one vehicle.

The other vehicle was being driven by Ffion Owen.

But we also wanted to speak to her boyfriend, Ciaran Hodson,

because we believed that there was evidence that he was the link

-between the two.

-Hodson was also a passenger in Owen's car at the time of the accident.

It was time for Ifed to take this investigation to the next level.

We went to go and arrest Mr Hodson at his home address.

When we investigate crash-for-cash cases,

we're typically looking for anything...

Any kind of paperwork that relates to the insurance claim.

Also, we're often looking for phones because they can tell us a huge

amount about who's been in contact with who,

and crucially when. And if it's before the date of a collision,

then that's often telling evidence.

We came away with quite a lot of paperwork and some phones from his address.

The phones clearly showed frequent communication before

the accident between Owen, Hodson and the driver of the other car,

Faizal Saidi.

In light of the evidence,

this Bonnie and Clyde duo didn't last long under interview.

Fairly unusually for a crash-for-cash investigation,

both Hodson and Owen fully admitted that this collision had never really

happened, as they tried to purport to the insurance companies,

that they'd crashed the cars together to make some money.

And also because one of the vehicles already had a broken bumper and they

wanted to get a cheap repair.

With Owen and Hudson telling all, it was two suspects down, one to go.

We found Mr Saidi harder to locate.

More difficult to find and get his account.

Luckily, some colleagues of ours in a separate police force were also

looking to speak to Mr Saidi and so we were able to coordinate our

efforts and track him down.

So, Saidi was a man in demand.

But once Ifed had him in custody,

he wasn't as forthcoming as his partners in crime.

Mr Saidi didn't want to answer any of our questions.

But by that stage, we had his phone.

And so we had plenty of evidence there to show that there had been an

exchange between Mr Hodson and Mr Saidi of the details of Ms Owen's

vehicle and bank account details.

All leading up to the accident date.

So, we had clear evidence that this was a relatively carefully planned

and orchestrated crash-for-cash scam.

That was the final nail in the coffin for our troublesome trio.

The outcome was that we had compiled a pretty overwhelming case and we

took that to the Crown Prosecution Service who authorised charges against

all of these people. And we took them to court and they were all convicted.

Having pled guilty to fraud by false representation,

all three were sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment,

suspended for two years,

and were each ordered to pay back £3,000 to Direct Line.

I think what this case highlights is there's a multitude of ways that

insurers and the police look at crash-for-cash.

I think it's fair to say that the days of easy whiplash claims and

quick cash from crashes have gone.

There's a huge amount of work being done by the industry and the police

and it's only ever going to get harder.

Later, the owner of a puppy lies about it's date of death, to obtain

false insurance cover.

And a driver's claim his car was sideswiped by a bus breaks down when

CCTV shows it barely left a scratch.

Take a look at that.

The car doesn't even move.

Now, for most of us, living without our smartphones or tablets just

isn't an option. Whether you're keeping in touch, working on the go,

sharing your life with the world,

or are an online Scrabble addict like me.

Yeah! The modern day smartphone lets you do it all.

So, when we lose or break them, it's a big deal.

And that's why we have mobile phone insurance.

Luckily, mobile insurers can reconnect us with a replacement handset and

have us selfieing again before we know it.

But this service has also been targeted by fraudsters who think

they can make some easy money.

In the event of a device disaster, Andy Morris's team are on hand to help.

All manner of claims come across Andy's desk.

One particular case he was given to review, presented like a fairly

standard phone faux pas.

So, this lady called our claims team and told us that her iPhone had been

damaged and said that they had dropped the phone on the road and

the phone had been run over by various vehicles.

It's not hugely unusual for our customers to drop their phone and

subsequently a vehicle go over the phone.

It's quite rare that a phone would be run over by numerous vehicles.

Indeed, and the claimant explained how her handset was well beyond saving.

So, at that point, a claims agent offered to swap or repair the

device for the customer.

To which they were told quite clearly the phone was in several pieces.

And what's more, the claimant didn't have time to swap the device.

Despite a rather smashing story,

there was no way to validate the claimant's account of what had happened.

But the claims handler was still prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

So, we gave her the opportunity of claiming for a brand-new handset,

which we would call a replacement loss.

We asked for some additional information to process the claim.

In a normal set of circumstances,

that information would be processed on the same claim,

or within minutes or hours.

Well, this wasn't a normal situation.

And things took slightly longer than that.

We heard nothing from this claimant for ten months.

It's incredibly unusual for there to be such a long gap.

To be without the handset is equivalent

to losing an arm or a hand.

That's a wait of nearly a year to complete the claim for her destroyed device.

While the claimant was in no rush,

Andy's team had plenty of time to look into her phoney story.

Whilst processing the claim and gathering the information and the

evidence, our claims handling agent

found evidence that this unique device

had been exchanged directly with a manufacturer before the original

claim had been notified to us.

Andy's team had proof that the claimant had exchanged the phone

reported to be damaged, some ten months ago

and had already received a replacement handset.

This information was put to her.

The claimant might well be on the back foot.

Andy's team have established that the allegedly smashed device was

exchanged for a brand-new one ten months ago

courtesy of the phone manufacturer.

As her phone number would have transferred over to any new phone she was given,

Assurant could see she had been using the replacement handset all along.

Quite clearly in this case, the claimant stood to profit

because she had already

replaced the phone and she was then subsequently claiming for a new phone.

So, she would have profited because the result would have been two devices.

Even faced with the evidence,

the claimant was determined to play dumb.

During the claims process, our agent gathered the evidence

not only that this handset had been exchanged,

but also the mobile phone number and the individual claimant's

information was exactly the same.

In short, the evidence suggested the claimant was trying to claim for

a phone that had already been replaced.

But the curious gap of ten months before she even attempted to claim

with her insurers, gave Assurant cause for concern,

as well as time to investigate, allowing them to uncover key information.

At this stage,

the evidence that we'd gathered during the claims process made it

pretty unequivocal that the original story

that the handset had been dropped in

the road and run over by various vehicles actually had no fact.

But there was no budging the claimant from her version of events.

We had evidence to prove that the handset had been swapped.

So, during the call,

on supplying the information and the evidence to this claimant,

the lady merely said, "OK, all right, thanks."

And just like that, the ongoing 10-month claim was over.

The claimant's willingness to throw in the towel, strongly suggests she

thought pulling a fast one would be easy as one, two, three.

What's incredible about this case is the behaviour of the claimant.

They probably don't realise that every conversation, or every interaction,

is recorded. So, what that means is our ability to detect fraud,

even though it might be ten months later, is greater.

Now, you probably have never wondered what an insurance cheat looks like,

but I can tell you they come in many guises from all manner of

backgrounds. The truth is,

not all fraud is committed by what you might consider

out-and-out criminals. In fact,

there are often individuals in respected positions who have no history of criminality,

but for whatever reason decide to go down a dishonest path.

RSA's John Beadle picked up the thread of a case which needed some

further investigation, back in 2009.

This was a claim from a gentleman who had been a loyal customer of

ours for some time, in respect of his commercial property,

which was a rather exclusive Central London menswear shop.

And he made a claim in respect of water damage

caused at his commercial premises,

which had damaged both his stock and

his personal clothing.

On the face of it, this was a genuine claim,

which we settled relatively quickly with a cash payment of £30,000.

But unfortunately, the claimant's bad luck soon struck again.

Some years later, Mr Elle made another claim where sewage had escaped into

his commercial premises and had damaged again both his

commercial stock and also his personal effects.

The value of this claim was some £39,000.

With Mr Elle's high-end suits ruined and reeking,

the conditions of the claim were also a little whiffy.

This being the second occasion with very similar circumstances,

it would prompt us to look a little closer, which is indeed what we did.

John's team were determined to wring out the truth.

We asked Mr Elle to substantiate the claim and give us a list of the items

which had been damaged and these

were really expensive pieces of clothing.

He produced to us some documentation to support his claim.

When we examined this,

we found actually it bared very similar relationship with the original claim.

Whilst not quite a duplicate of it,

it appeared to contain items which were the same.

Highly suspicious that the two

claims bore such startling similarities,

the paperwork Mr Elle had supplied was analysed for any discrepancies.

It became apparent that some of this documentation had in fact been

created by Mr Elle on his own computer

the day before the visit by our

investigator and no doubt in preparation for his visit.

With strong evidence that Mr Elle had submitted a fraudulent claim,

it was time to air his dirty laundry in public.

We confronted Mr Elle with our difficulties

we had in respect of the claim

and the supporting documentation

and he offered no reasonable explanation.

We certainly weren't going to pay the claim and in fact we referred

the case to Ifed.

The Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department took the case on

and after reviewing the evidence and interviewing Mr Elle,

it wouldn't be long before he would need one of his own suits for

a very formal occasion.

Ifed picked up our investigation and ultimately charged Mr Elle

with two counts of fraud.

He went to crown court,

where he pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to

ten months' imprisonment, suspended for 12 months,

and ordered to do 160 hours of community work.

Mr Elle had narrowly escaped a custodial sentence.

But RSA still had unfinished business with him.

In addition to the prison sentence and the conviction that

Mr Elle received,

we will be pursuing recovery of our own original payment of £30,000.

This well-respected fashion entrepreneur and businessmen had

paid a high price for his attempted fraud.

I think when Mr Elle reflects on this,

he will obviously bitterly regret his actions.

And the shame that he's brought on himself,

his family and indeed his respected business.

Still to come, a fisherman is caught hook,

line and sinker after faking a burglary.

We challenged the customer over that and he admitted that the item

actually in the photograph wasn't stolen.

Whether you've got a soft spot for cute kitties or a love for

pedigree dogs, pet insurance offers owners protection should their furry friends

need help. It's one of those policies you hope you'll never need,

but it's also one that's all too easy to let slip.

Unfortunately, there are some owners out there who,

in the event they find themselves without valid cover,

will do almost anything to get their hands on a pay-out.

Puppies are adorable.

But these cute canines are a huge responsibility and incredibly

vulnerable. So, when a dog owner called to report a tragic accident,

Simon Wheeler's team were on hand to deal with the call.

This claim concerns a very young Pomeranian puppy.

A very, very sad case.

The owners were moving house.

In the evening, sadly,

the policyholder's sister trod on the puppy and killed it.

A horrible accident.

The claimant had bought the puppy from a breeder and he'd come with

a free 28-day period of insurance cover.

The first time we heard from the policyholder was a telephone call

just to determine when the temporary period of insurance ran out.

So, she'd elected not to continue that into a full annual policy.

So, the date was obviously important to her,

in terms of when the accident happened.

The purchase price of the puppy was £1,500.

A sizeable sum.

And without a valid policy,

the claimant wouldn't receive a penny back.

And it wouldn't be long before the claims team would hear from her again.

That very same day,

we then had another conversation with the policyholder.

And she called up to advise us that the puppy had died.

The 15th. Just one day before the policy was due to expire.

A fact she had suspiciously checked just hours earlier.

The claimant appeared to be too distraught to continue the call

and passed the phone to her daughter.

Between the claimant and her daughter,

we have established that the puppy died the day they were moving house.

But examining the veterinary records

gave Simon's team serious cause for concern.

I'm looking at the veterinary history,

the date that the puppy was killed was actually different to the date

the policyholder had suggested.

Rather than the 15th of December,

with the policy expiring on the 16th,

the date that the vet had recorded was actually the 17th.

So, the claim wasn't covered.

With the claimant's cover expiring on the 16th,

this information was put to her.

So, once again,

it seemed to be the claimant's daughter who was in charge of dealing with

the puppy's untimely death.

The policyholder received the notice from us that we declined

the claim because the incident occurred outside the period of cover,

as detailed in the veterinary notes.

The policyholder then challenged the veterinary history.

Despite the contradicting evidence,

the claimant was sticking to her story.

She's now blaming the discrepancy on her daughter's error.

And despite the claimant's increasing irritation,

the claims handler calmly relays the facts.

The claimant was starting to make a real dog's dinner of her story.

Furthermore, on listening to the calls,

the policyholder had been insistent that the puppy had been trodden on

on the day that they moved house.

And that date was the 15th of December.

When we went back to the policyholder

after we'd done our investigations,

she confirmed that actually the date of moving was the 17th

and the puppy had been killed on the 17th.

CLAIMANT SIGHS

A telling sigh. The claimant has just dropped herself right in it.

The policy expired on the 16th of December and we've already

established that the puppy's death and their house move occurred on the same day,

which she's just admitted to being the 17th of December.

Crucially, a day after the cover had ended.

Having had a situation where

the policyholder had tried to move the date,

to bring the date into the period of cover,

to have the purchase price covered,

it was yet more of an indication that she was trying to twist and

manipulate the cover to suit her needs.

Despite this whole dispute centring around when the puppy had his fatal

accident, the claimant decides that dates are suddenly unimportant.

Again, she was trying to manipulate

the timing of the puppy's death to fall inside the period of cover.

So, she's insistent and desperate and nothing was too much effort for her.

The claimant is clearly frustrated,

but the simple fact is her policy expired on the 16th of December and

she did not have valid cover.

But she's refusing to back down.

While the claimant continued to pass the buck,

the evidence was overwhelming.

The rejection of the claim stood and no money was paid out,

although this type of lengthy investigation

still does cost insurers.

It's tedious and it's time-consuming for all parties.

That adds a huge administrative burden into the process for us.

That administrative burden comes with a cost.

That cost, unfortunately, gets loaded into premiums.

This case proves that anyone who tries to pull one over on pet insurers is

going to have a rough day.

For people who try to manipulate dates or adjust things to suit their

own ends, it's usually very easy to see through it.

It doesn't take much effort to really pick under the skin of

situations that don't appear to be as they should be.

When it comes to making an insurance claim, there's no such thing as a

little white lie.

If you've been involved in a genuine accident, then exaggerating or

fabricating any damages and injuries to get a bigger pay-out is fraud.

And it can land those who try it in very hot water.

Transport companies are often victim to this type of opportunistic fraud

as there's a misconception they're a soft touch.

But this couldn't be further from the truth.

There are thousands of buses operating on UK roads.

These mechanical beasts are hard to miss.

Sometimes, literally.

Lee Ingram knows all about how motorists can get tangled up with

these oversize vehicles.

He was asked to look over one claim which seemed to be at the minor end

of the accident scale.

The actual accident circumstances in this case were

that a bus was overtaking a stationary line of traffic on its right.

It's gone ahead to do a left-hand turn into a side road and as it's done so,

the rear tail of the bus has swung out and pressed up against

the stationary car. The bus driver didn't actually know an incident had occurred.

It wasn't until a short while after,

when the car driver followed him down the road

and let him know that the accident happened, that he was aware of it.

A seemingly minor accident,

but the occupants of the car submitted damages and personal injury claims

totalling over £8,000,

which prompted Lee's team to re-examine the circumstances of the incident.

When we reviewed the accounts given by both of the claimants,

we found a number of inconsistencies in their statements.

Both of the claimants in this incident are alleging that they were jolted forwards

and backwards in their vehicle when the collision has occurred.

One of them's claiming that they were moving at a slow speed.

The other one said that they were moving at a moderate speed.

But the key factor there is that they both allege that the vehicle

was moving at the time that the bus struck them.

A strange account,

as the initial report had stated that the car was stationary during the incident.

But it would be the personal injury claims that would raise serious

-suspicions.

-The driver of the car has submitted a claim for

soft tissue injuries to his neck and back.

He's also alleging that he's got a fear of travel after this

seemingly low-speed impact.

He's also put in a claim for care and domestic assistance.

So, cooking, cleaning, childcare.

We do see these claims from time to time and the key really is to look

at the injuries sustained and think, "Is that reasonable?"

But you're also looking, in this case, to see who has actually

provided that care.

Given the extent of the claimant's alleged injuries and

the psychological effect of the accident,

you'd suspect a team of highly trained medical experts, wouldn't you?

He's alleging that the person who's given this care was his wife.

Now, she submitted in her claim that she also cannot do these very things

that he's alleging she assisted him with.

These two clearly need to communicate more often.

Sounds like the blind leading the blind.

And it wasn't just the claimant's personal injuries

Lee suspected were hugely exaggerated.

After an accident, we will often inspect a vehicle involved in a collision with one of our buses.

Part of that inspection is to take photos of the vehicle.

We saw photographs come back and they showed some minor

scuffing to the door in a sort of brushing motion,

and we'd also lost the back of the wing mirror off the car.

Very indicative of a minor impact,

rather than actually a dent

which you would expect from a side-on collision.

With the claimant's version of events suggesting a violent shunt had taken place,

it was time to check the bus CCTV to see what had actually occurred.

This footage clearly shows...

I mean, this chap and his wife have both said they were thrown forwards

and backwards. Take a look at that.

The car doesn't even move.

So, they haven't been tossed around

like an old pair of socks in a tumble dryer - as alleged.

We're talking about a push against a wing mirror on a car.

You push a wing mirror and it just folds.

No way. No way is that car moving from hitting that wing mirror.

Hardly the automotive carnage the claimants had suggested.

When we actually looked into this claim and investigated it

thoroughly, looking at the CCTV footage,

it soon became apparent that this was a very low-speed impact.

We couldn't really see how anyone

could have sustained any movement within this vehicle

following on from this very innocuous collision, really.

And despite submitting a claim of over £8,000,

the driver of the car was prepared to settle it at the scene for quite a bit less.

The claimant had gone to our driver on the day and had said that

if you paid him £50, he would go away and not pursue the claim.

Lee and the claims team had seen more than enough to make a decision.

We refused to accept that this barely perceptible coming together

of vehicles could have caused

anything like the level of injuries or damages that were being claimed.

So, we refused to pay the claim,

leaving the claimants with either the option of issuing proceedings on

us, or dropping their claims.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against them,

the claimants decided to take the case to court -

a decision they would regret.

The judge just simply couldn't believe, when he'd seen the footage...

He saw there's no movement in this car.

It's quite obvious. So, it doesn't take the judge much to look at the footage and think,

"This is just not right."

So the judge has struck the claim out in its entirety,

with an award for our costs in full.

So, it's a very satisfactory outcome to a claim that, once we'd looked at

the footage, really had no chance of succeeding.

Despite his many years in the job,

cases like this one are still keeping Lee on his toes.

I still am surprised with

the ridiculous claims we do get in sometimes

and the barefaced cheek of some people and what they will go through

just to try and make some easy money.

Also, I'm always amazed that they still haven't cottoned on the level

of investigations and detail that we will look into

just to verify a claim.

These people should really wake up

before they consider submitting a claim to us.

Now, if you're unfortunate enough to have something stolen,

then so long as you're covered with an insurance policy,

it can be replaced. In the event of a theft,

insurance companies place a lot of trust in us being honest about what's been taken.

But sadly there are those who attempt to bend the truth and

think adding an item here or there won't really make a difference.

The truth is, it's no different to going out and stealing that item.

So, when insurers suspect this is happening,

they'll do everything within their power to identify the fraud

and stop it in its tracks.

Home insurers can protect everything

from the kitchen sink to the garden shed.

David Berry's team at Lloyds Banking Group received a call from a customer

who'd had a less secure part of his property targeted.

In April 2015,

he contacted us by phone and explained to us that the lean-to,

which runs alongside the side of his house, had been broken into.

We asked the customer what had been stolen at the time and he explained

to us that he didn't think that

the thieves had got fully into the lean-to

because it appeared that they had only taken items

that were quite close to the door.

Although it could have been worse,

the claimant reported that some expensive items had been taken.

A number of items were stolen.

There was a drill, which he wasn't actually that bothered about because

he was more concerned about the fact he was a keen fisherman and a number

of items that were clearly important to him had been stolen.

Those items had been acquired over a period of time and also some of them

were very, very recently purchased.

And in fact they were very expensive. He estimated that the

total value of the claim was in the region of £5,000.

As the name suggests,

lean-tos aren't usually the most solid or secure of structures and

are commonly filled with low-value things.

So, to be keeping five grand's worth of stuff in there was slightly odd.

When we asked the customer to provide us with fuller details

in terms of the description of the items,

together with any receipts he had

or details of where he bought the goods from,

we also suggested to him that he might have photographs of any of

these items that might also help us understand their value.

As requested, the claimant promptly supplied the claims team with photos

of the alleged stolen items.

But there was one small problem.

When we looked at the properties within the equipment, we identified

that one of them was taken around about 20 minutes before he

reported the claim to us.

And the second one though was around about an hour,

a little bit over an hour, AFTER the claim was reported to us

over the phone.

A puzzling discovery, which was put to the claimant.

When we asked the customer to tell us when he had taken these photographs,

he told us that they'd been taken over a period of time,

going back maybe as long as two years.

It was looking like the claimant had only managed to frame himself

for a potential fraud.

We challenged the customer over that and he admitted that whilst he had

had some items of equipment stolen,

the item actually in the photograph wasn't stolen.

But he had added it to the claim.

The claimant had come clean,

but this lone confession didn't mean he was off the hook.

We explained to him that as part of that claim was fraudulent,

he wasn't entitled under the policy

to any payment because it was now our right to cancel the policy

on the grounds of fraud.

So, the claimant wasn't going to receive a penny.

But that wasn't the end of the investigation.

We reported the matter to the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department and when they

interviewed the customer, he explained to them that actually

nothing had been stolen from the shed.

This keen fisherman had been baited by the false idea that submitting a

fraudulant claim would pay off.

Previously, he'd told us that a number of items had been stolen,

valued at around £5,000.

So, it really was a surprise to us when he actually did admit to the

police that nothing at all was stolen.

Despite the claimant's blatant and planned attempt to swindle his

insurers, he narrowly avoided prosecution.

As a result of that interview,

and again because the customer was of previously good character,

the police were prepared to deal with the matter

by way of a police caution.

Ifed will investigate any suspected fraud

and for insurers,

having the boys in blue as an ally often proves invaluable.

Had we not reported the matter to the police,

it's very unlikely that we would've actually understood ultimately that

nothing at all was stolen.

Insurance companies are making it crystal clear that they are not soft

targets and there will be serious consequences if anyone tries to defraud them.

I honestly don't believe that customers sometimes realise the

repercussions of what can happen if they're caught committing insurance

fraud. Potentially,

it could mean that the matter is reported to the police,

which could lead to imprisonment or a suspended sentence.

Insurance fraud in this country costs all of us money.

But the days of no-questions-asked pay-outs are numbered.

Insurers are getting ever more sophisticated technology to identify,

track and prosecute fraudsters

and courts are using new powers to put these criminals behind bars.