Motor injury insurance claims harvesting

28 September 2017

In the past two years, there has been a concerning rise in an activity, relating to motor injury insurance claims in Western Australia, known as 'claims harvesting'.

Claims harvesting is the practice of unethically pursuing accident victims to encourage them to lodge a motor injury insurance claim. Victims can be encouraged to exaggerate or even lodge false claims.

Information is gathered in cold calls made to members of the public by people pretending to be from a crash investigation company or the Insurance Commission.

The callers may deceive the people involved in the crash by promising sums of money if they lodge a claim through a specific legal firm. A number of legal firms are suspected of involvement in claims harvesting.

Since 2015, the Insurance Commission has received 322 motor injury insurance claims it suspects originated via claims harvesting.

Some of the practices involved with claims harvesting may be illegal and unethical.

The Insurance Commission is working with other Government entities on the issue of claims harvesting by investigating and managing those claims as they arise.

The Insurance Commission, together with Consumer Protection, provided a community alert on claims harvesting during 2017.