Car Insurance Rorts !

Most people dread opening the mail when the annual car registration bills arrive.  This year the Green slip insurance charge increased by 8%, adding another forty dollars to the annual cost.  It seems that compulsory third party motor insurance is at the apex of insurance fraud and this seems to run hand in hand with the way our legal system works.

A whole industry is milking that form of protection because it is an easy way to make money.  Smart operators know how to stage a minor car bingle that produces a cast of players who claim injury. Usually those injuries fall into the categories that are hard to medically fully diagnose, but which cause the sufferer difficulty in holding down a job.  A complicit sector of the legal profession specialises in shepherding these claims through the court and the judiciary seem benevolent because the money is coming from an insurance fund.

Some of these claims defy logic.   In one claimed crash the number of injured far exceeded the number of seats in the car, and lately claims for injuries to babies have spiked.  Damages sought seem fanciful, including psychological damage and " future lost earnings " - and often result in an award in excess of $ 100,000.

There are moves to tighten the system and place a cap on each individual injury to contain costs but that rewards the fraudsters and limits the compensation available to those who have suffered a truly debilitating injury.  Perhaps compensation for injuries that are medically obvious could be settled quickly - and those that have an element of doubt be subjected to a more intensive examination by a panel of specialists trained to detect fraud.  What attracts the present surge of dodgy claims is the sure knowledge that the odds of success is with the claimant !

There is another worrying car issue that concerns many - and that is car theft.  In so many news reports of car crashes the term " stolen vehicle " appears.  In this twenty-first century it seems that stealing a car is no more difficult than it was back in the middle of the twentieth century, and we have made amazing advances in technology since that time.

Many people will remember innovations that were claimed to produce an answer to car theft.  Remember when steering locks were introduced and once the key was withdrawn from the ignition the lock automatically prevented steering ?     Years later the car industry was forced to install what were called " immobilizers " to all new cars, which was said to make them unstealable !

The modern car is probably the most costly item the average person buys apart from his or her home, and yet even cars at the very top of the price range offer little deterrent to thieves.  There is little to stop a thief gaining access to the passenger compartment, and even in this electronic age starting the engine and driving away still meets that " gone in sixty seconds " criteria.

Theft prevention seems very low on the manufacturers list of priorities.  The modern car is said to be a computer on wheels and we have seen what is possible to prevent access to mobile phones by way of the fight between Apple and the FBI.  It is probably impossible to protect a car from the professional thief, but we certainly could devise a system that would thwart the average low life who seems the main perpetrator.

It seems that the car industry will only take theft seriously when car owners elevate it to one of the main reasons they arrive at a buying decision !