Parents 'admit to car insurance fronting'

By Tom Farley, Wed 24 Feb 2010 - Published in Car Insurance

Up to 36,000 parents could be committing car insurance fraud by claiming their children are their partner on policies, it has been suggested.

Online insurer swiftcover.com found that one-quarter of motorists it contacted about concerns over their policy had put their kids as their partner rather than a named driver on their car insurance - an offence known as fronting.

Many of the drivers claimed the error was an honest mistake, but opted to cancel their policy and seek alternative cover instead of paying for a more expensive premium.

Robin Reames, claims director for swiftcover.com, said that fronting harms honest car insurance customers if they are involved in an accident with a fronted driver, as they would essentially be uninsured.

"The expense of uninsured drivers and fraud is pushing up the cost of insurance premiums for everyone - so parents who think they are helping by fronting for their children are both breaking the law and making car insurance more expensive for everyone else," he explained.

A recent report from the AA found that simple errors on car insurance applications, such as transposing letters or numbers and putting an 'O' instead of '0', is leading to more drivers being stopped by the police because of automatic number plate recognition errors.

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