Britain's number one comparison site found 2.4 million Brits, or six per cent, are willing to consider making a false claim on their home insurance, this compares to five per cent in August 2009, showing that in just over seven months around 500,000 more people are thinking about submitting a dodgy claim.
2 Of the six per cent however, almost one million admit they'd consider making a false claim - or had already done so - regardless of the 'credit crunch'. Worryingly, almost 402,000 people with home insurance have already defrauded their home insurer by successfully making a false insurance claim.
Julie Owens, head of home insurance at moneysupermarket.com, said: "How worrying to see so many consumers believe it is acceptable to make a false or exaggerated claim on their home insurance. No matter how tempting, fabricating a claim for a pay out is not only wholly inadvisable but it is also illegal, and you could face being prosecuted as a result. "Faking it" certainly isn't the way for recession-hit Brits to make ends meet. Perhaps people feel their dishonesty only impacts the insurer but this couldn't be further from the truth. Insurance fraud of this nature increases the cost of premiums for honest Brits."
However, the research also found 15 per cent of Brits surveyed admit they don't have home insurance, and of those that do nearly eighty per cent haven't made a claim in the past five years. Of the 17.3 per cent who have successfully claimed in the last five years, four per cent have claimed once in the last two years, and two per cent have made more than one claim in the past year.
Julie Owens continued: "Its a surprise to see such a high number of home insurance policy holders haven't claimed in the past five years. This may be because people don't want to risk seeing their premiums rise, but Brits needs to remember that home insurance is there to safeguard against any unforeseen accidents or circumstances in the home, so shouldn't be afraid to make use of the service if they need to. Those worried about the cost of their policy should consider shopping around to find the best deal to suit their circumstances. On average moneysupermarket.com can save you £131 on your annual home insurance policy."3
-Ends-
Notes to Editors:
1 Opinium Research carried out an online poll of 2,030 UK adults from Thursday 1st to Tuesday 6th April 2010. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.
The latest UK population projection figure is 49,121,000 adults aged 18+
82% of respondents have home insurance = 40,279,000 people
Six per cent of 40,279,000 people with home insurance is 2,417,000 or 2.4 million
Five per cent of 40,279,000 people with home insurance is 1,999,652, or over 1.9 million
2 Opinium Research carried out an online poll of 2,004 British adults from Friday 14th August to
Tuesday 18th August 2009. Results were weighted to nationally representative criteria. The research found that five per cent of people would consider making a false home insurance claim.
3 Home Insurance - based on average savings for full year 2009 for home insurance quotes run through moneysupermarket.com:
|
Average Annual Saving |
No product as quote is scenario based. This is the average saving according to ms.com data |
|
£131.00 |
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