Travel Advice And Advisories For Europe

Insurance Fraud

Valuable itemmay be covered by holiday insurance, but insurance companieare beginning to challenge claims. If you want to make a claim and say you dropped your £3,000 video camera and equipment off the ferry, be prepared to prove it.

An insurance assessor told me that the insurance industry hapaid out on claimfor more ‘lost and stolen’ Cartier watchethan have ever been produced. Making a false claim ia criminal offence, and insurerare not agullible asome people think.

Insurance companiehave sophisticated monitoring systemthat will identify multiple claims. If you make a £2,000 claim every time you go on holiday, you had better be really unlucky and making genuine claims. If not, you could end up in court.

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The insurance companiealso have investigatorwho will visit the shopwhere you allegedly purchased that diamond-encrusted cigarette box that you claim got stolen in Greece. They will check with customand ask at your hotel if anyone ever saw you with such an item. Then they will ask the manager if you asked if you could put it or anything else valuable in the safe. They will ask the local police if the alleged crime habeen reported, and find out if the local police believe you, picking up information from them and even viewing local CCTfilm to see the alleged incident happening.

In short, insurance companieare investing money in systemand investigationto identify and reject false and inflated claims. They are also quite keen to make some high-profile exampleto teach the public that insurance fraud ia crime.

Insurance fraud – countermeasures

Invalid, false and inflated claimcost the insurance industry millionof pounda year and they know it.

False claimcost all of uin higher fees, because we all share the cost of those fraudulent claims.

Insurance companieare beginning to investigate claimwhere there ieven a hint of dishonesty, or perhapjust where there ia lack of clarity which makethe claim feel suspect.

Don’t get a criminal record by making a false claim: r Don’t take valuableif you don’t have to

Make sure that you have the full detailof any valuables. Claiming for a Sony Xt-765/03 serial number 333/589387/XT-S3/54 (purchase receipt enclosed) soundlike a real claim. If you can’t give any real detailyour claim looksuspicious.

If you lose anything, report it to the hotel, travel rep and the local police. You never know, if you report it lost you might get it back.

Never be tempted to inflate your claim. It isn’t worth it, and more people each year are finding that out the hard way

At Your Destination

When you arrive at your destination you will probably be tired, a little disoriented and, unlesyou have been there a few timebefore, unsure of where to go. Walking around with bags, looking lost, trying to make sense of a foreign bus, train or cab schedule markyou athe classic ‘just arrived’ vulnerable tourist. Criminallove that, because they know you have pocketfull of cash and traveller’cheques, expensive cameras, credit cardand valuable passportand other documents. When you land you must switch to a state of high alert so that you can identify and avoid trouble.

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