Giving an insurer a false incident date in an attempt to include pre-existing vehicle damage in a later claim resulted in both the claim being rejected and the policy being cancelled.
The National Financial Ombud Scheme (NFO) upheld the insurer’s decisions after the policyholder admitted that he had falsified the date, although he maintained that he had done so for “the sake of efficiency” rather than with malicious intent. The case was included in the NFO’s 2025 annual report.
The complainant submitted a motor vehicle claim in May 2025, stating that he had scraped the front-right side of his vehicle against a building.
The insurer appointed an assessor to determine the cause and extent of the damage. It also appointed a specialist to validate the loss.
The specialist used the NAVIC vehicle-intelligence platform to conduct an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) check for sightings of the insured vehicle before the reported incident date. ANPR technology uses optical character recognition to read vehicle registration plates and generate vehicle-location information.
The vehicle sightings obtained through the check prompted questions about the information submitted with the claim. When confronted with the evidence, the complainant admitted that he had falsified the incident date.
He disclosed that the damage to the front-right side of the vehicle had occurred between November and December 2024, rather than on 17 May 2025 as initially reported.
The complainant said he had been too busy at the time of the earlier incident to deal with the insurance assessment process.
A separate incident occurred on 17 May 2025, when his wife reversed the insured vehicle into another vehicle, damaging its left rear. The complainant then decided to submit a claim covering the damage from both incidents.
He maintained he had combined the damage into one claim for the sake of efficiency.
The insurer rejected the claim and cancelled the complainant’s policy.
According to the policy wording, the insurer was entitled to cancel the policy with effect from either the reported incident date or the actual incident date, whichever was earlier, if the complainant or anyone acting on his behalf provided false or incomplete information relating to an application for cover or a claim.
The insurer found that the complainant had supplied false information when submitting the claim and exercised its contractual right to cancel the policy.
The complainant approached the NFO to challenge the cancellation. He argued that he had not provided the inaccurate information with malicious intent and said the cancellation had made it difficult for him to obtain insurance elsewhere.
He asked the NFO to compel the insurer to reverse the cancellation because he had subsequently provided the correct information about the claim.
The NFO found, on a balance of probabilities, that the insurer had been entitled to reject the claim and cancel the policy in accordance with its terms and conditions.
It also found that the insurer had complied with its obligations under the Policyholder Protection Rules when cancelling the policy.
The complainant’s subsequent disclosure of the correct incident date did not undo the fact that he had initially provided false information when lodging the claim.
The NFO said an insurance policy is a contract entered into in good faith by both parties. An insurer relies on the information supplied by a policyholder when underwriting a risk and processing a claim. Policyholders should therefore provide complete and accurate information when applying for cover and submitting claims.
