Knowsley campaign cuts insurance payouts by £3m a year

A campaign by Knowsley Council to stop fraudulent insurance claims has cut payouts by £3m a year.

Five years ago Knowsley launched a more robust approach to handling insurance claims against the Council for incidents such as trips, slips and falls on footpaths and highways.

This has saved the Council in the region of £6.5m over the last five years.

The changes included:

•  Speeding up investigations of suspected insurance fraud and improving the insurance database, to track potential frauds;
• Improvements to highway and footpath inspections and repairs;
• Challenging claimants at an early stage to establish the facts of their claim;
• Providing enhanced employee training and awareness; 
• Recovering the costs of failed claims; and
• Passing information on to police for review and possible prosecution or caution.

The work has seen payouts to claimants fall dramatically from £3.5m in 2002 to an estimated £600,000 last year.

The number of claims has plummeted too – from a peak of 1,662 in 2002 to 236 in the last financial year.

Cllr Norman Keats, Knowsley’s Cabinet Member for Finance and IT, said: “Five years ago we adopted a zero tolerance approach to cases of suspected insurance fraud and it has reaped real rewards. 

“While we recognise our responsibility to compensate genuine claimants, we are not prepared to pay out for false or invented claims.

“This approach has seen a real reduction in the number of claims being submitted and has sent a clear message out to fraudsters that we will hunt them down in Knowsley.”

Cllr Keats added: “Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime – it takes money out of the public purse which would be better spent on services and facilities for the people of Knowsley and this is why we are committed to fighting every case we suspect is fraudulent.”

If you have information about a suspected case of insurance fraud against Knowsley Council, call the fraud hotline on 0800 0730 532 or via the website www.knowsley.gov.uk.