Crawford mpany : Reading from computerized car keys catch fraudster out

Key facts

A GAP claim, which arose from the alleged theft of the policyholder's vehicle, was submitted to our client. The value of the claim, had it been successful, was over £8k.

The policyholder alleged that his vehicle had been stolen without car keys from outside his girlfriend's house, where he had parked it, at some point on the evening of 15 August 2020.

The claim was repudiated on the basis that the alleged theft was not genuine and it had been contrived by the policyholder in order to make a total loss claim on the GAP policy.

Background

Our client obtained key readings from the policyholder's two sets of keys for the vehicle. The key reports showed that the main key had last been used shortly before 9 pm on the date of the alleged theft and the spare key had been used at 10:30 pm.

The client called in support from CLS after the policyholder stated he last used the car before 9pm.

Commentary

The policyholder was interviewed and again stated he had last used the car prior to 9 pm and more crucially that his spare keys had never been used and were kept at his parent's address.

The data from the key report was then disclosed to the policyholder and he was asked to provide an explanation as to how his own keys had been used to access the vehicle given he claimed it had been stolen.

The policyholder attempted to explain this anomaly by stating 'a family friend' must have taken his spare key despite the fact he specified within his statement that he had not had any gatherings at his house due to Covid restrictions.

It was politely pointed out to the policyholder that if he believed a family friend had stolen his vehicle then he would need to report this to the police.

He quickly backtracked and suggested the alleged thief must have got into his house without anyone knowing, knew where his keys were kept, stole them, somehow knew his vehicle was parked outside his girlfriend's address, stole the vehicle and then gained access to his house for a second time to replace the keys.

This further explanation was not accepted and the claim was refused.