Liberty Insurance wants the Irish government-initiated fraud database to include fake brokers, amid a “dramatic increase” in cases of ghost broking over the last 12 months.
These fraudsters sell bogus motor insurance, according to a report by The Irish Times. “[They] typically advertise their services online or within local communities, claiming to be genuine brokers,” said Liberty Insurance as quoted by the report.
Victims are charged up to €300 – and foreign nationals are frequent targets. According to the report, the practice of ghost broking was identified in the UK ten years ago before it caught on in Ireland.
The UK’s Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) said ghost brokers are fraudsters who sell drivers cheap motor insurance deals but issue policies that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
The IFB said policies are bought from legitimate insurance companies using false information and then doctored before being sold on to customers. Another way scammers go about their schemes is by creating fake policy documents designed to look like they have been issued by legitimate insurers and then selling them on to customers.
The UK already has its Insurance Fraud Register (IFR), which went live at the end of 2013. Ireland’s database is expected to be set up before the end of this year. The IFR, the first industry-wide database of known insurance fraudsters, is being managed by the Insurance Fraud Bureau in partnership with the Association of British Insurers.
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