Fraudlent Claim - UK Insurance Ltd v Gentry

Case Alert - [2018] EWHC 37 (QB)

Judge considers whether fraudulent claim against insurer had been proven

Following a collision between two cars, the insurers of the allegedly negligent driver paid the defendant (after he obtained default judgment against their insured). However, the insurers then brought an action against the defendant seeking damages for deceit. They alleged that the accident had been staged.

Much of the case turns on its particular facts, with Teare J acknowledging that "There is rarely direct evidence of fraud. Where there is no direct evidence of fraud it can only be inferred from circumstantial evidence", with particular assistance often being gained from contemporaneous documents. Of particular importance in this case was that the drivers of the two cars were friends. The judge commented that " Of course it is possible for two friends to suffer a collision when driving their respective cars. It would however be a striking and unlikely coincidence. Another explanation for the collision is that the two friends had staged the collision; that would explain the apparent but unlikely coincidence". Of further importance here was the fact that they had initially tried to...