Organised criminals stealing identities of dead people to get cheaper car insurance
City of London Crime Fraud City of London Police Standard News Car insurance Police
Martin Evans
Organised criminals and fraudsters are stealing the identities of dead people in order to get cheaper car insurance, it has emerged.
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The Telegraph
Organised criminals and fraudsters are stealing the identities of dead people in order to get cheaper car insurance, it has emerged.

Unscrupulous motorists with poor driving records are increasingly targeting the deceased, in order to take advantage of more attractive premiums.

Police technology also means it is now very difficult to drive around in an uninsured vehicle without being detected, so having some sort of cover is usually vital to avoid unwanted attention.

Driving a vehicle that is insured in a dead person's name also means there no chance of the scam being discovered by the victim.

It is feared organised criminals and even terrorists, could take advantage of the scam, in order to move around on the roads undetected.

The widow of former Tory Minister, Ian Sproat, has described how she realised his identity had been stolen when she received a letter saying he was being prosecuted for speeding, six years after his death.

"Then in January this year I received a letter from South Yorkshire Police, again addressed to my husband, containing a Notice of Impending Prosecution for a speeding offence committed on 1 September 2017.

"The police explained they had obtained my late husband's name and address from the car number plates of the speeding vehicle."

Mrs Sproat contacted both the insurer and the police to inform them of the situation but was simply told to report it to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. And while she cannot be held liable for any financial penalty incurred in the scam, she is angry that her law abiding husband's name, has been used as part of a criminal enterprise.

She said: "There could be many motives for this identity theft, from the fairly simple one of wanting to gain benefit of a no claims bonus, the more sinister ones of a fraudster being banned from driving, or a career criminal wishing to avoid detection, or even to a terrorist with the same idea."

Mrs Sproat added: "Of course I have no means of knowing if my late husband's identity theft relates only to car use. If it has been used in other ways I daresay I will find out in time."

But experts at the Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) at the City of London Police admitted they have no idea of the scale of identity theft involving car insurance, because so few cases have been reported.

This could be because it is still not widespread, but it could also be because the families of those dead people being targeted are simply unaware.

A spokesman for the City of London Police said: "False addresses are used to get cheap insurance as they are often taken out using low risk postcodes.

"We have often seen that this type of fraud can facilitate organised crime gangs with insuring their vehicles so they don’t come to the notice of police and also obtain cheaper policies."

Colin Jemide, and adviser with IFED said: "There is so much information available online these days that identity fraud is obviously a danger. There could be all sorts of reasons why someone would seek to use somebody else's details when getting car insurance.

"In order to prevent this sort of thing happening it is important to carefully check all letters you receive in the post from insurance companies and not assume they are junk mail.