Aviva’s Ward on the spectre of paid-for online spoof ads

Picture this: you’ve been involved in a road traffic collision, and are standing, shaken up, at the roadside, waiting for the police to arrive and exchanging insurance details with the third party.

Many of us have been in this situation before.

You don’t have your insurer’s telephone number, so you look it up using a search engine on your mobile. There it is, right at the top where you expect it. The insurers brand may not be there, but that’s what you searched for, and the first results say car claims, claims department, or something similar – exactly what you were looking for. Believing this is a link to your insurer’s claims department, you click on it, and it dials a number. You’re on your way to claiming with your insurer. 

Or are you? 

This happened recently to a colleague’s daughter. The colleague in question works in the special investigations unit in our counter fraud team. His daughter’s first call – after reporting her claim – was to her dad. She told him what had happened.

Instead of ringing her insurer – which in her shaken-up state she was convinced she’d done – she unknowingly contacted an accident management company.

He was naturally concerned for her safety, but after confirming she was fine, she started to tell him about who she rang, the questions they asked, and what was happening with her car. It was clear this was not a normal claims process.

His daughter was the latest in a growing number of innocent motorists who’ve found themselves the victim of a paid online ad ‘spoof’. This involves unscrupulous firms paying for search engine adverts that insinuate they are associated with a trusted insurer, so they can ‘capture’ the claim for their own financial benefit.

For my colleague’s daughter, this meant that instead of ringing her insurer – which in her shaken-up state she was convinced she’d done – she unknowingly contacted an accident management company.

This is where things get complex. 

Once a customer’s claim has been captured, a labyrinthine set of contractual arrangements will be made on the customer’s behalf, and potentially, at their cost.

Costs usually include fees for recovery, storage, and hire, can start accruing immediately after the initial call, and can reach tens of thousands of pounds in total. Customers who realise what’s happened and want their insurer to take over the claim are likely to have to pay the costs of all the AMCs involved before they will get their vehicle back.

As a result, customers who can’t afford to pay can become trapped in contracts against their will – contracts that were likely not explained clearly.

Whether the customer realises the situation they are in or not, there remains a serious risk of financial harm to the customer, in the event the AMCs are unable to claim costs back from the at-fault insurer. This can happen if liability is disputed, or the insurer believes that costs are inflated (as is often the case) and therefore decides to challenge them. The AMC can even take the customer to court in an attempt to recover costs. You can imagine the stress and upset this could cause. 

Poor customer outcome

All of this is an incredibly poor customer outcome. When a customer has a motor accident, they look to their insurer to assist them. Instead, the wilful misleading of shaken-up customers after an accident by a small percentage of unscrupulous AMCs can cause further anxiety and financial stress.

And so our industry, which does so much good for our customers, must tackle this latest challenge and educate customers about the risk of online spoof ads and how to avoid becoming a victim. 

It’s why we joined forces with the Insurance Fraud Bureau and why we are working with law enforcement agencies to urge motorists to be vigilant when searching for their insurer online.

The message to customers is simple: before calling a number they found from an internet search, check to ensure the business is legitimate. The easiest way to prevent this from occurring is to keep their insurer’s contact details on their phone, or written down and kept in their glove box.

Back to my colleague’s daughter – it took him several hours to untangle the web of contracts that had already been set in motion to ensure that his daughter wouldn’t add financial misery to her misfortune. Fortunately, he was successful, but not everyone will have his level of understanding and expertise – and nor should they. 

Let’s work together to protect our customers from this latest opportunistic scam.