“Move back there and hit it again.”
With car insurance premiums on the rise and set to get even higher, Tuesday night’s Prime Time on RTÉ turned its attention to one of the reasons why motorists have to fork out so much money for insurance these days.
The programme featured never before seen footage of fraudsters staging road crashes in order to make bogus insurance claims for damages.
Footage of two collisions, both filmed by the Gardaí, featured on Tuesday night’s show, including the one below, involving a car and a van in the dead of the night. After the collision, a car carrying two men arrives on the scene and the men get into the crashed car before emergency services are called to the scene.
Footage shown on @RTE_PrimeTime shows people staging a car crash in order to make a fraudulent insurance claim #rtept pic.twitter.com/Ut1YUg0dvZ
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 6, 2016
The footage also shows the driver of the van that was rear ended by a car instruct the man who crashed into him to “move back and do it one more time”. The car then rams the van a second time.
It is the first time such footage has been seen and all of the people featured in the footage of the two collisions, except one, have been charged and convicted of offences.
Gardaí warned that allegations of such fraudulent behaviour will be fully investigated, and, where there is evidence of a crime having been committed, prosecuted.
Alarmingly, the programme revealed how the high level of payouts for whiplash and soft tissue injuries in Ireland is attracting people to fly into the country, hire cars and crash for the specific purpose of making a claim. Car rental Company Hertz gave several examples of how cars were crashed in suspicious circumstances within 24 hours of being hired by tourists.
There were also reports of a network of fraud rings operating in Ireland by criminals who use insurance fraud as a way of funding their lifestyle.
One fraud ring operating in Munster has claimed over €1 million in the last decade; the ring involves two families who have had more than 30 accidents between them.
You can watch Prime Time on the RTÉ Player here.
