How a dash cam can save you from a car crash scam
Installing a video camera is the latest way to save on insurance. There are plenty more. Here are ten ways to cut car cover
AXA insurance is offering a 10% discount to drivers who mount a dashboard camera. Another 10% is knocked off the price of the camera for Axa customers. That’s good news for drivers who now have another handy option for cutting the cost of cover.
But behind this move is a sorry tale of rampant and unpunished insurance fraud that provides an ever more compelling reason to have a video recording of your driving experiences.
We are all victims of scam crashes set up by criminals who reap big payouts from claims, racking up our insurance premiums.
But drivers are also being targeted individually in an even more nasty type of scam. This is where a car in front of you deliberately brakes suddenly or even reverses into you, causing a crash. In that scenario, it’s almost impossible to prove you weren’t at fault – without witnesses, or video evidence.
If an insurer can cut premiums by 10% by being able to prove you are not at fault in such crashes, how many drivers are being targeted by them? Quite a few it seems.
One Irish Mail On Sunday reader told us of what he believes was a close call as he drove along a deserted road behind another car which braked suddenly.
Luckily, he was on the alert and slammed on his brakes, narrowly avoiding a collision. The driver jumped out and started shouting at him, claiming other people inside were injured. Shaken, he pointed out that the cars hadn’t even touched. The other driver examined the rear of his car – and drove off without another word.
Last week, a case that has lasted for five years was withdrawn when insurers Aviva refused to settle a claim from a man who slammed on his brakes coming up to a roundabout with no traffic in front of him. The pensioner behind him went into the back of him, causing minimal damage, but the man claimed €75,000 from the pensioner’s insurance company. The claimant tried to settle at the last minute, but the pensioner’s insurance company called his bluff, providing evidence he had been uninjured in the minor tip and he withdrew the case.
The pensioner was lucky. Another British driver recently had to rely on a dashcam to avoid a gruelling, stressful and expensive court experience of being sued in the wrong.
A cyclist literally threw himself in front of his car, but his actions were caught on the driver’s dashcam. The cyclist got up and walked away after realising he had been filmed.
His humiliating antics became an internet hit when posted on YouTube. Such scams cost the insurance industry €200million a year – and this bill is simply passed onto us through higher premiums.
Improved technology means dashcams are becoming more affordable. They can be bought for between €30 and €200 and are easy to install. The device usually records on an hour-long loop – or restarts every new journey.
If you are involved in an incident you simply stop the device to ensure everything that has happened is left on the memory.
A spokesman for AXA stressed that the dash cam discount is a pilot scheme to see if these devices can help in resolving future claims and liability in a more efficient manner.
‘It can take time to obtain Garda evidence. In addition, witness accounts may vary or simply do not exist,’ he said.
He added that it won’t be compulsory for the customer to share their footage if a collision has occurred, even if they received a premium saving on their AXA policy.
However, a spokesman for the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) pointed out that anyone filmed on your dash cam could legitimately demand to see footage you have – which could work against you if you were in the wrong in a collision.
Concerns were raised by prominent barristers that dash cam footage could fall foul of data protection legislation.
But AXA said: ‘The footage belongs to the driver and them alone and we would advise all dash cam users to comply with data protection legalisation.
The DPC spokesman said: ‘There is no explicit prohibition of the use of dash cams under data protection legislation… where the purpose for the use of dash cams by drivers is for when a traffic collision occurs.’
However, ‘processing of personal data obtained from these dash cams for other purposes, e.g. uploading content online, is not allowed under data protection legislation’.