Background

This case began with a notification from an accident management company, who submitted an engineer’s report concerning a Rolls Royce Ghost. The report indicated that the claimant vehicle was declared a total loss with a Pre-Accident Value of £110,915, and after deduction of salvage, the claimant was seeking payment of £90,950.30.

The information accompanying the engineer’s report was minimal. According to the accident management company, their allegations were that the policyholder vehicle reversed into the claimants parked vehicle, however, they could not tell us the incident location or provide any other supporting evidence.

Our insured client, a vehicle hire company, confirmed to us that they had not been notified of the incident, and reported no damage to the hire vehicle when it was returned. With these discrepancies, the matter was referred to the Special Investigations Unit for further investigation.

How we helped

After conducting background checks, the SIU uncovered that the claimant had links to the repair facility where the Rolls Royce was being stored. Due to these potential conflicts of interest, the Special Investigations Unit retained control of the investigation moving forward.

Davies Special Investigations were then instructed to take a statement from the individual who had hired the vehicle. The hirer appeared credible and provided a clear explanation, that he had hired the vehicle solely to move house and driven 15 miles, as confirmed by pre- and post-rental mileage records.

GBB, Davies’ expert forensic investigations company, were tasked with conducting a forensic examination of both the vehicles. Their analysis concluded that the damage sustained by the Rolls Royce could not have been caused by the client’s vehicle. Furthermore, when the claimant’s vehicle was inspected, it was clear that several components of the vehicle had been stripped from it.

A credit hire claim was submitted at over £40,000. Within this payment pack, the location of the incident was finally provided – a 75-mile round trip from the hire location. Given the hire vehicle had only covered 15 miles during the hire period, it was clearly logistically impossible for the alleged incident to have taken place as alleged by the claimant.

Outcome

With overwhelming evidence pointing to fraud, the claim was duly repudiated to the solicitors that had been instructed on behalf of the claimant. The solicitors subsequently confirmed that they had closed their file, allowing our team to close ours with a saving of £131,268.96 for our client.

The success of this case is thanks to our Large Loss team, whose diligent early investigations laid the groundwork for uncovering the fraudulent nature of the claim.

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