More than £90 has to be added to car insurance premiums to cover the increase in fraudulent whiplash claims, which insurer Aviva say surged by 51% in 2013 and another 21% in 2014 for their company.

The dangerous “crash for cash” scam, which costs the insurance industry up to £2 billion, involves gangs who suddenly brake their vehicles in front of innocent drivers, forcing them to crash and be liable, as well as exposing them to serious injury or worse. The gangs then file fraudulent claims for whiplash injury with their victim’s insurers. Aviva say they currently have 6,500 suspicious claims on their books from known fraud gangs.

Sadly others who should know better have had their snouts in the fraud trough, including solicitors who have offered financial incentives for legal work placed, and have had to be banned by the Justice Department from doing so, and doctors who have charged up to £700 for a medical report on whiplash, this now capped by the Justice Department at £180.

Some success against the gangs has been logged by insurance companies with the two leaders of one in Leeds receiving jail sentences in December for false claims. On another occasion, in Greater Manchester a fraudster who had staged nearly 100 crashes was jailed after office workers in buildings overlooking a roundabout noticed the high number of low-speed shunts involving the same driver happening there.

According to the RAC some motorists in Britain – dubbed “the whiplash capital of the world”- are using dashboard cameras to record any accidents and protect themselves against fraud.