Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Fraud red flags in UK road traffic personal injury claims: a practitioner’s checklist

Published by a LexisNexis PI & Clinical Negligence expert

Checklists

Claimant

Claimant's history

Has the claimant previously pursued personal injury claims? This can be verified via the Claims Underwriting Exchange (CUE) database, which records all claims that have been lodged with an insurer.

Nature of the injuries

Do the reported injuries align with, and are they proportionate to, the overall seriousness of the collision event?

High occupancy

A crowded vehicle (ie several passengers) does not, by itself, prove fraud, yet it may still be relevant where an accident is alleged to have been engineered or staged.

No reason to stop

Where the defendant maintains the claimant’s car braked without cause, this may potentially point to a set-up incident.

Late reported claim

Although claimants ordinarily have three full years to bring a claim, when a claim reaches an insurer more than six months after the accident date, without any credible reason at all (eg a prolonged hospital stay, or the claimant’s insurer struggled to identify the defendant’s insurer), there is a significantly heightened chance the claim has been farmed (ie generated, fabricated, solicited or exaggerated by third-party claims management companies or fraud rings, rather than started by the injured person themselves).

Phantom passengers

If there are more claimants than the occupancy,...

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Web page updated on 20/05/2026

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