Episode 4 Claimed and Shamed

Insurance fraud in the UK is reaching epidemic levels.

And it's costing us billions of pounds every year.

Deliberate crashes, bogus personal injury claims,

even phantom pets.

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

And every year, it's adding up to £50 to your insurance bill.

Insurers are fighting back,

armed with covert surveillance systems...

'The subject is out of the vehicle.'

..sophisticated data analysis techniques.

And highly skilled dedicated police units...

Police! Don't move! Stay where you are!

..they're catching the criminals red-handed.

All those conmen, scammers and cheats on the fiddle,

now they're caught in the act

and claimed and shamed.

Today, a crack police squad

dedicated to stamping out insurance fraud

executes an early-morning raid.

A man who claims he's too disabled to work

is caught lugging kitchen units at a warehouse.

It was quite galling. If it wasn't so serious, it would be humorous.

And a fraudulent claim for an old banger goes nowhere

after the owner is caught providing fake photos.

One of the photographs he supplied was a direct lift from a website of a Bentley dealership!

Building sites are known for strict health and safety regulations.

But accidents do happen.

In 2005, a fall from a vehicle like this

resulted in a personal injury case so fiercely contested that it led to a change in the law.

David Spencer from law firm Berrymans Lace Mawer worked on the case.

He started by looking into the man at the centre of the claim,

Sean Summers.

He says that he slipped from a stacker truck,

a kind of JCB-type vehicle.

The injuries that Sean sustained were a fracture to his wrist

which was relatively minor and relatively straightforward.

The fracture to his ankle was quite serious.

It required pins being put in

and a second operation for a bone graft.

No-one had witnessed the accident.

And a judge ruled that Summers' employers, Fairclough Homes, were liable.

The insurers would have to compensate him

for any loss suffered as a result of the accident.

And if Sean Summers' claims about the extent of his injuries were true,

the losses would be considerable.

According to him, he couldn't walk without the aid of elbow crutches.

He wasn't able to walk up and down stairs.

He wasn't able to stand for long periods of time.

Just as serious was his assertion that he would never work again.

So his claim for loss of earnings for a man who was in his middle 20s

was significant, into the many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Because he said that he was unlikely to ever fully recover from his injuries

he also said he would continue to require care and services for the rest of his life.

The various costs came to a grand total of:

But it seemed out of all proportion to the actual injuries he'd suffered.

We've seen similar and worse injuries where people have made a quicker and better recovery.

And so one of the lines of enquiry

is to make sure that the claimant is being honest in his presentation.

With this in mind, they decided there was only one option - surveillance.

They approached Roger Bescoby,

whose company specialises in covert surveillance,

to work on the case.

His operatives immediately got to work.

It wasn't long before secret filming revealed a very different Sean Summers

to the man he was purporting to be.

Here was a guy who was showing no signs of disability.

There were no walking aids in place.

He boarded and alighted a vehicle very easily.

I think it was actually quite useful that we had such an accurate description of the guy

because it would be quite easy to not believe this was the same person,

given the level of injury that this chap was alleging.

We would have expected to see a man on crutches, unable to walk,

being helped, perhaps, through the day.

The way that he displayed himself on surveillance footage,

he was perfectly fit and well

and the absolute opposite of what he described in his medical evidence.

And the revelations didn't end there.

He'd told his own medical expert

that he wasn't able to work and hadn't worked since the day of the accident

because of the horrific pain that he was in with his ankle.

The surveillance immediately showed Mr Summers was working.

We managed to film him loading and unloading a vast amount of kitchen units, domestic appliances,

to and from his vehicle.

This involved him climbing in and out of the van.

Once again there was no apparent disability evident in our opinion.

And certainly no walking aids being used.

Sean Summers was required to attend regular medical assessments

in order to evaluate the level of injury

and plan for his future treatment.

Surveillance footage which was recorded on the day of one medical assessment

showed Summers waiting outside the building

while his wife fills in a questionnaire.

His behaviour is particularly revealing.

Mr Summers is seen on his crutches, but at one point

he's sitting on a step but pushes off from the floor

with his injured foot.

Sean Summers kept up the appearance of disability

for the duration of the assessment.

But as soon as he returned home, things changed.

An hour, hour and a half later, we see Mr Summers arrive home.

Shoe back on the injured foot,

not using the crutches at all, other than carrying them into the house.

Taken as a whole, the surveillance footage appeared to contradict

the majority of Sean Summers' claim.

It was quite galling. If it wasn't so serious, it would be humorous.

But we knew this was a man who was claiming substantial damages

for injuries that clearly weren't affecting him as badly as he said they were.

With the expectation that he would scale down his claim,

the footage was sent to Summers' solicitors.

Hearing that he'd been caught on camera,

seemed to have a dramatic effect.

He attended a general practitioner complaining of an acute stress reaction

to having been found out by the insurance company.

Eventually, the case reached court.

Sean Summers adopted an unusual strategy

when the surveillance footage was presented to the court.

Mr Summers refused to accept that the surveillance evidence

was anything other than showing him in a disabled state.

At points, it got ridiculous that despite the fact we saw him shopping in Tesco's,

he said that he still couldn't go shopping.

Although there was strong evidence to suggest exaggeration,

the judge was bound by legal precedents.

Even a lying and dishonest claimant was entitled to what was assessed to be the genuine part of his claim.

The judge had no option but to award Sean Summers a payout for his actual accident.

He calculated the claim to be worth in the region of £88,000.

Despite only being paid around 10% of his claim,

Sean Summers still walked away with the best part of £90,000.

But the defence didn't rest there,

and they employed the services of renowned QC, William Norris.

They felt that the Sean Summers case highlighted an important legal issue.

Because the existing law was that

if you claim 100% and even 90% is a fraud,

as was the case here,

you're still entitled to judgement for the 10%.

We wanted the law changed so the court recognised it had a power to strike out the whole of the claim

as to its entirety.

What they wanted to do was exceptional.

They wanted the Supreme Court to change the law

so that claimants got the message that if they were dishonest,

they wouldn't get a penny.

You've been caught cheating. Your claim is dismissed in its entirety.

Don't complain. If you don't like it, next time just tell the truth.

The case was brought to the Supreme Court.

After a two-day hearing, it came to a decision.

The Supreme Court heard legal argument and eventually handed judgement down

agreeing with the points that we'd made on the legal principle

that where people use the court process and abuse the court process

in a massive attempt to deceive,

the entirety of their claim can be struck out.

It was a landmark ruling.

From now on, claimants grossly exaggerating their injuries

could have their whole claim thrown out of court, leaving them without a penny.

The message for anyone who's tempted to inflate their claim

is now loud and clear.

If they are the subject of a contempt of court case

after the personal injury trial

they will be sent to prison.

So although the ruling came after the case of Sean Summers,

the payout of £88,000 he received

may not have gone particularly far

as around £63,000 was deducted for state benefits.

Things could have been very different if he'd tried an alternative approach.

If Mr Summers had been genuine in his presentation

and admitted that he'd tried to go back to work in some capacity,

he would have actually never seen the inside of a courtroom.

The likelihood is the insurance company would have negotiated settlement

and paid him more money than the court eventually awarded.

So Sean Summers' strategy meant that he missed out on a larger amount of compensation

and his actions led to a Supreme Court ruling

that has effectively changed the law.

The courts now have the tools available to them

to strike out entire claims where claimants have been fraudulent or exaggerated their claim

in a massive attempt to deceive.

Thanks to the ruling, people benefitting from exaggerated claims

should be a thing of the past

and will never again financially benefit from their greed.

The police insurance fraud team

finds a bundle of cash.

What's that for?

And a spectacular crash by an uninsured driver

is caught on CCTV.

When we saw the footage, we thought this was a very strange accident.

We don't see accidents like that very often at all.

Businessman Peter Webb ran a company that hired out vintage cars

for happy couples on their wedding day.

But heartbreak was in store for Webb

when the latest addition to his fleet was stolen.

He bought a 60-year-old Bentley Mark VI

for around £3,700.

DC Declan Malone from the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department worked on the case.

Suspicions were aroused when he looked into the circumstances of the theft.

Mr Webb informed the police that his car had been stolen,

that it was inside a locked garage

inside a locked compound.

The only one that was broken into

was the one that his Bentley was supposedly taken from.

In addition, the theft had occurred just two months after the car had been insured.

And when the insurance company requested further information about the restoration,

alarm bells began to ring.

They required some photographs of the stages of renovation work

which would only be natural to have been taken.

He said that unfortunately for him that wasn't possible

as all the photographs were in the boot of the car at the time it was stolen.

He was also asked to supply invoices

for the renovation work that had been carried out.

He said unfortunately they were also in the boot of the car at the time that it was stolen.

The insurance company strongly suspected fraud

and were querying the claim.

Curiously, this appeared to jog Peter Webb's memory.

He then remembered that he'd managed to have some of the photographs

captured on one of the computers he'd given to one of his grandchildren.

And he supplied those photographs to the insurance company.

But these images painted a different picture

and confirmed that there was something seriously suspicious about the claim.

One of the photographs that he'd supplied

was a direct lift from a website of a Bentley dealership!

He tried to pretend a photo of a pristine vintage Bentley he'd found on a website

was a picture of his car.

The insurance company immediately passed the case to the police.

As part of the investigation,

IFED went to the mechanic who'd recently performed an MOT on the car.

He said that the car that he MOT'd

was "in a tatty state", as he described it.

He didn't think that it was the same vehicle.

In addition, investigations revealed that the man who was said to have performed the extensive renovation

had since died

and would have been far too ill to do the job.

DC Declan Malone then asked renowned Bentley expert Ken Lea to look at the other photographs.

Yet more inconsistencies were revealed.

We thought that the car in the photo was a later-dated car

than the one that he purported to own.

I think his was built in 1949

and the car in the photograph was 1952.

And it's between 1950 and 1952 that the engine changed

and the exhaust system changed

and that was the first giveaway.

He'd unfortunately picked a car

which was very different in its individual features

than the one that he actually owned.

The car Peter Webb owned and the car in the photos were completely different.

He'd pilfered pictures from the internet

to pass off his shabby old banger

as a pristine restoration job.

He was hoping to collect £42,000

for a car worth a fraction of that price.

But the most important piece of evidence was still to come.

The truth behind the other photo

revealed just how far he'd been prepared to go with his fraud.

Mr Webb had taken out a Bentley from a Bentley dealership

for a test drive.

He'd been allowed to use the vehicle for about half an hour.

During which time he fitted it with false plates

and had photographs taken.

He'd then supplied the photo to the insurance company

claiming it was of his own car.

By now, IFED had overwhelming evidence of fraud

and the case proceeded to court.

Initially, he pleaded not guilty

and it wasn't until right up until the day before the trial

that he actually pleaded guilty.

Mr Webb was fined £10,000,

ordered to pay £1,375 in compensation to the insurance company,

£1,000 costs plus a £15 victims' surcharge.

If Mr Webb defaults on the £10,000 fine,

he's been given six months' imprisonment.

Despite going to some effort to provide fake photos,

Peter Webb was unable to cheat his way to a fraudulent payout

and has ended up with a criminal record and a huge fine.

Combating the ever-increasing threat of insurance fraud

is an elite police squad known as IFED,

the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department.

The primary aim of IFED is to start taking disruptive action

against those criminals who are intent on committing crime

in relation to insurance.

It's that defrauding that is raising the premium for everyone in this country.

They've made over 300 arrests

and have saved millions of pounds in fraudulent insurance claims.

Money which ultimately goes back into our pockets.

From now on, fraudsters need to watch their backs.

We do intelligence gathering, sometimes surveillance on individuals.

Sometimes a lot of detailed research into the background.

We'll decide when the time is right to take down people,

and that means often execute search warrants where necessary.

We'll force entry into premises if we think evidence could be lost.

In only 18 months, we've arrested over 300 people.

We will start to see a reduction in insurance fraud in this country,

which is ultimately what we're aiming for.

It's highly likely now, if you commit any insurance fraud, you will get caught.

Police! Don't move! Stay where you are!

At any one time, IFED officers are juggling multiple investigations.

Another one of DC Declan Malone's cases

has reached a point where the team is ready to stage a raid.

He believes that a specific traffic incident relates to a suspected motor insurance fraud.

DC Malone and the team have hit the road early

so they can pay a visit to a man at the centre of the case.

We're going to the home address of a taxi driver

who was carrying five juveniles when he, we believe, induced an accident

whereby he slammed on his brakes and a marked police vehicle went into the rear of him.

After the accident, claims for personal injury were then allegedly made

on behalf of the juveniles who'd been in the taxi,

but without their permission or the permission of their parents.

The suspicion is that a third party was potentially fraudulently making the claims

with the intention of lining their own pockets.

Other raids are taking place simultaneously

which are focused on third-party suspects believed to be connected to the potential fraud.

We're going along now this morning to see if we can arrest this guy

and see what he's got to say.

The team has also obtained a warrant

so they can search his house.

Today, we're looking for evidence of association

to see if he's got connections

either with the other individuals that are being arrested elsewhere

and also a claims management company.

The IFED team never knows what lies in store on a raid.

So today, the local police force is providing back-up.

They gather outside the house, taking care to cover all possible exits.

Suspects have been known to flee or try and destroy evidence.

So it's important to try and minimise the chance of this happening.

Good morning. We're police officers.

Is Mr BLEEP in, please?

Yeah. He's asleep.

I need to talk to him. Could you wake him up, please?

Come in. Is that OK? Can we come in?

It's early in the morning.

The suspect is just getting up.

He's immediately arrested.

The time by my watch is two minutes past seven.

So if you put on your trousers, but I need to watch you. Yeah.

Once you get dressed, we'll explain the rest to you. Yeah, yeah.

With the suspect located and detained within minutes,

it's been a successful start to the raid.

But the team needs to get the search underway as soon as possible.

We need you to tell us where your paperwork is. That's what we want.

Sorry? Your paperwork. Any insurance documents or anything like that.

It's much simpler and quicker if the suspect co-operates,

but he initially seems hesitant.

The papers are in... Have a look if you can find anything

you are looking for through there.

Before being taken away for further questioning at a local police station,

the suspect is asked to empty his pockets of anything he doesn't need.

It turns out he's carrying a huge bundle of cash.

We've found £1,000 in cash.

We've spoken with the person who's been arrested.

The IFED team decides not to look into the money there and then,

preferring to investigate it at a later date.

At this time, because you're arrested,

we're going to take you to the police station while we are here

searching the premises.

Anything we take, we'll record and leave a receipt with your wife.

If you take him away, we can finish up downstairs. Yeah. Fine.

Finally, the suspect is on his way.

He'll be questioned at a local police station

and the interview will form an important part of the investigation.

Meanwhile, the search gets underway in earnest inside the property.

The team don protective gloves

so that they don't contaminate any potential evidence.

OK, gentlemen. We know what we're looking for, yeah?

Any sort of documentation.

We'll start upstairs, then. OK. Good man.

We're looking for things that associate him with the accident we're investigating.

We're also looking for articles that will associate him

with the others who have been arrested.

Diaries, hopefully. Telephones, storage devices,

that may have the other suspects' details on them as well.

He may have sketch plans of accidents that have been induced.

Anything, really, that may link him with that type of lifestyle.

That's the vehicle that was involved.

DC Declan Malone immediately makes a useful discovery.

I've just found a DVLA form

which is the taxi that was involved in the collision.

It's a copy of that.

Which ties him to the vehicle.

It's important to back up the case with supporting documentation.

There's also a copy of a report made to the local council about the accident

at the centre of the case.

It ties him in with the occurrence that we are investigating.

It's nothing on its own that's going to hang it.

He obviously, if he maintains his story that it was a genuine accident,

that's the kind of thing you'd expect to see.

It seems that this isn't the first personal injury claim connected to the suspect.

It's only a previous claim that he'd made for personal injury

but he hadn't pursued.

The vehicle at the centre of the case is parked outside the residence

and it's not long before it, too, yields possible evidence.

We're actually looking for documentation from insurance companies.

We're also looking for mobile phones which may contain evidence.

As you can see, there's two in the glove box of this vehicle.

This is a handwritten letter

describing an accident where a cyclist rode into a car.

It forms part of the investigation and might lead to further enquiries that need investigating later.

Back inside, there's further potential evidence

that the suspect has been involved in previous insurance claims.

We've got a few bits and pieces that tie him in to the vehicle.

And we've got some other documentation that we've found

where the vehicle has been involved in a previous similar accident

that it would seem as though he's been paid out for.

It's reference another road traffic collision that happened.

It looks like he was a witness to it.

So it may be nothing, but it's obviously another road traffic collision at a similar time

to the traffic collision we're looking at.

Should be able to find the paperwork for it and just check and see what it was all about.

IFED is turning up evidence of a number of previous collisions.

The information will be fed into the investigation

to see how it fits into the bigger picture.

DC Malone then finds something concerning the suspect's financial situation.

It indicates the amount of debt he's in, really.

The search is drawing to a close.

DC Declan Malone reflects on how the raid has gone.

We managed to arrest the person that we were after.

We've conducted a search of his home address.

We've come up with some documentation that links him to the vehicle

that was involved in the reported induced collision.

We also have some documentation that shows that that vehicle was involved in other collisions previously.

We'll see what he's got to say with regards to the accident.

He'll be bailed after we've interviewed him

and he'll be interviewed on another occasion when all the available evidence will be put to him.

It's been a long day,

but the search has turned up a variety of potential evidence.

IFED is determined to win the fight against fraud.

It will do whatever it takes to stop criminals

whose greed adds to the rising cost of insurance policies,

an offence that costs all of us money

and endangers the lives of innocent road users.

Claims handlers in the next case

were immediately alerted by the short space of time

between motor insurance being taken out and a claim being made.

Richard Davies is head of fraud at AXA UK.

We first heard about the policy about 20 to 4 on 24 November.

So less than 12 hours afterwards, we'd had an accident reported to us.

When we've got a small gap between a policy being taken out

and a claim being reported, it often rings alarm bells inside an insurer.

As part of the claims procedure,

the policyholder was asked to describe the accident.

They'd clipped the wing mirrors of another car they were passing

and then in reversing back to talk to the person they'd had an accident with,

they collided with another vehicle and that caused the vehicle to roll over.

It was a serious accident that had caused a lot of expensive damage to several vehicles.

The investigation into the claim revealed further cause for concern.

The credit card payment which we took to pay for the policy bounced.

It was then that the insurer was alerted to a piece of evidence

which blew apart the claimant's story - CCTV.

When we saw the footage, we thought this was a very strange accident.

We don't see accidents like that very often at all.

The CCTV footage actually came from a third party

whose vehicle had been damaged as our policyholder reversed back into them.

They worked in an educational institution

which had CCTV cameras at the doors

and the time stamped on that film told us when and where the accident actually occurred.

The accident had been reported to the insurer on 25 November.

The claimant said the accident had happened the day before,

on 24 November at 3.45,

just five minutes after the policy had been taken out at 3.40.

However, the CCTV told a different story.

The time stamp on that

said the accident took place at quarter past three

on 24 November,

so in essence the accident has taken place before the policy existed.

The next step was for the company to go back to the complainant

with the CCTV evidence.

When we challenged the policyholder about this,

they failed to respond to any of the questions that we asked them.

We sent her a questionnaire and we've yet to receive any response.

Needless to say, the insurers didn't pay out on the policy.

This was a really bold attempt at insurance fraud.

The policyholder knew they didn't have a policy.

They took it out knowing that they were going to submit a claim

and we're very lucky to have caught them at it.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd