Birmingham has topped the UK’s “crash for cash” scam postcode league – the second time in a year the city has featured in a table of hotspots for the crime.
With the aim of exploiting insurance claims for money, fraudsters manufacture collisions with other road users.
Compiled by the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB), the table showed Birmingham had 10 of the top 30 postcodes for the crime.
Washwood Heath, Aston and Small Heath were the three worst postcodes for the crime in the UK.
Manchester, Bradford, London and Oldham also featured on the list.
In Bradford, Frizinghall and Manningham came joint fourth for the numbers of fraudulent claims, while in Manchester the M8 postcode, which includes Cheetham Hill, was ranked sixth.
“We don’t know the exact reason Birmingham features so heavily in these surveys,” said Ben Fletcher, the director of the IFB, a not-for-profit organisation set up to detect fraud.
“Obviously, this is a nationwide problem and we have investigations that range from Kent to the North East, but large urban areas tend to be the focal points for these kinds of crimes.”
The figures apply to the past 12 months. The FBI said that in total, there were 55,573 personal injury claims linked to scams in the UK, costing the insurance industry a total of £340m a year.
Top crash for cash locations in 2017:
- Birmingham
- Bradford
- Manchester
- London
- Oldham
- Liverpool
- Bolton
- Sheffield
- Wakefield
Source: The not-for-profit organisation Insurance Fraud Bureau
