Ahhh - the old ones are the best!!

These excuses were on accident claim forms of a major insurance company. ere asked for a brief statement describing their particular accident.

1. The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.
2. I thought my window was down but found it was up when I put my hand through it.
3. A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
4. The guy was all over the place. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
5. I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.
6. The accident occured when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.
7. I was driving my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.
8. I was on my way to the doctor's with rear-end trouble when my universal joint gave way, causing me to have an accident.
9. As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
10. The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.
11. To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
12. My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.
13. An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.
14. When I saw I could not avoid a collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.
15. The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran him over.
16. I saw the slow-moving, sad-faced old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car.
17. Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.
18. The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth

£30 million a year saved by removing uninsured cars

Research by The Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) has revealed that the introduction of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) has resulted in 10% fewer accidents since 2006.

ANPR works by automatically reading the number plate of any car that passes by. It then searches a number of databases including the insurance bureaus database and alerts the police to any suspect cars.

The technology was original developed as a counter terrorism measure in London during the IRAs bombing campaign. Since then it has been widely adopted by the UK’s police forces.

A recent blitz has resulted in some 200,000 uninsured cars being taken off the road in two years.

The MIB said as a direct result of this there has been 10% fewer accidents since 2006-saving the Insurance industry £30 million a year.

Fraudsters beware

The insurance industry had a stark warning for anyone tempted to make a false insurance claim. Recently released figures from the ABI (Association of British Insurers) show that last year insurers uncovered 24,000 fraudulent motor insurance claims up 70% over the past three years. In total £260 million, or £5 million every week of false claims where detected.

Nick Starling, the ABI’s Director of General Insurance and Health, said:

“Insurance fraud is no victimless crime. Honest motorists pay through higher insurance premiums – an extra £40 a year on average. This is why insurers are ramping up their crackdown to weed out the cheats. Anyone committing insurance fraud is more likely to get caught, risks a criminal record, and will find future insurance and credit harder to obtain and more expensive.”

The number of fraudulet claims is expected to rise sharpely as consumers start to feel the pinch of the credit crunch and strugle to meet hire purchase and loan repayments.

Cheats who have been caught out include:

• A policyholder, claiming for damage to her Land Rover when it hit the front of her house, said it was caused when her foot slipped off the brake. However, the damage was caused deliberately, following an argument with her partner.
• A car owner claimed his car had been stolen. It was proved that he had pushed it over a cliff, and planned to use the insurance payout to meet his Hire Purchase payments.
• The owner of a Rolls Royce claimed £10,000 for the alleged theft of the front grill, hubcaps, steering wheel, seats and bonnet mascot. However, he had removed the items himself; they were later found in his home by the police. He received a criminal conviction.

Insurance claims Deer - official!

I got a note from a pal in the industry who lives in Swindon and he passed me a copy of a report in his local newspaper which had me scractching my head.

According to the report in This is Wiltshire, warnings are being issued to motorists in the New Year to slow down whilst driving in the New Forest.

The reason?

Deer.

Yep, apparently, head-on collisions with deer are leading to insurance claims of more than £21 million each year across the UK.

Apparently, every year an estimated 75,000 deer are struck by cars in the UK, but Jamie Cordery, the south-east deer liaison officer for the Deer Initiative, said that, despite the high number of deaths, the population of deer in the New Forest is not yet under threat.

Well that got me thinking. And I reached for my calculator. 75,000 claims costing £21m.

That works out at £280 per claim.

For a head-on-collision.

Must be accidents involving Fiat cars then.

Driving your truck? You mind how you go then!!

Or you might suffer the same fate as these two drivers!