Boat insurer sees threefold increase in fraudulent claims

7 May 2009

Navigators and General (N&G), the UK's number one yacht and motorboat insurer and part of the Zurich Group, has seen cost of pleasurecraft claims rise by more than threefold in the first three months of 2009.

The insurer has identified that the cost of fraudulent claims during the first four months of the year exceed the total cost of fraudulent claims received in 2008.

Typical fraudulent claims include:

Theft claims
Exaggeration of items stolen from the boat or gross exaggeration of the value of such items
False claims for total loss of the vessel due to fire or theft (these claims often follow a recent increase in value).

James Roberts Head of Navigators & General said "Whilst the vast majority of our customers are honest and opposed to this kind of behaviour, it would appear that increasing financial pressures brought about by the credit crunch is causing a rise in fraudulent claims."

Mr Roberts continued "We have a very experienced team of claims professionals who work with our fraud investigation team to ensure that these claims are easily separated from those made by honest claimants and to ensure this activity does not add any unnecessary cost to our customer's premiums."

Some recent examples of the fraud claims received by Navigators:

A customer claimed for £20k worth of repairs to his damaged boat. When Navigators contacted the repairer to start work on the boat, they were accidentally sent some pre-claim invoices which revealed that the owner was in fact claiming for a general refurbishment of the boat and there had been no accidental damage whatsoever.

A customer took out a policy and then claimed for damage to his boat shortly afterwards. Further investigation revealed the damage occurred some time before the policy was taken out so both the claim and policy were immediately cancelled.

A customer reported his boat stolen but shortly after Navigators paid his claim in full, the owner was found overseas with his "missing" boat!