Insurance premiums are being driven up by extremely poor recovery rates of stolen vehicles, an industry expert has claimed.
Just 65 of the 1,169 cars stolen in Kent were recovered by the police, according to a specialist motor insurance loss adjuster.
Claims Management and Adjusting (CMA), part of the QuestGates Group, said this meant a “shockingly low” recovery rate of just over 5 per cent, adding that this was a significant factor in pushing up insurance premiums.
“These new figures show that 2,429 vehicles were stolen in Kent in 2023, up again on the previous year,” said Philip Swift, a former detective and now technical director at CMA.
“Around half were cars, and the other half were vans, trucks, motorcycles and scooters. In terms of the most stolen models, it was the usual suspects, including Ford Fiesta, Ford Transit and Land Rover Discovery.”
Mr Swift added that one trend that was worryingly noteworthy was the “plummeting recovery rate”, down from 80 per cent nationwide in 2006 to just over 5 per cent in Kent last year.
“That’s atrocious, and seemingly ten times worse than the Metropolitan Police, which recovered 50 per cent of stolen vehicles,” he said.
“It is across the board, affecting all makes and models, and it plays a significant role in increasing insurance premiums.”
Mr Swift added that 150 Land Rover Evoques at £40,000 each equated to £6m in lost assets for an insurer, while 200 Ford Fiestas at £15,000 each represented another £3m.
“The cost to insurers quickly adds up and at some point that has to be passed on to the consumer,” he said.
“From an insurance perspective, the lack of detail in the data is also hugely frustrating. For example, we cannot tell the condition of recovered vehicles – whether they were intact and returned to their owners, or crashed, burnt-out or stripped for parts – or whether there was any suspicion of fraud.
“We have been calling for more concerted action from all interested parties for a while now because keyless thefts by arch villains is not always a convincing explanation.”
Motorists have already been under pressure from rising premiums, with industry data showing rocketing costs to drivers.
Figures released earlier this year by the Association of British Insurers showed the average price paid for motor insurance had continued to rise.
Costs were up 12 per cent in the final three months of last year compared to the prior quarter, driven by record increases in the cost to insurers to pay claims.
This meant motor cover was 25 per cent more expensive, on average, across the whole of 2023 than in 2022.
This ABI’s Motor Insurance Premium Tracker is the most comprehensive in the UK, analysing nearly 28 million policies sold a year.
It’s also the only collection that is based on the price customers pay for their cover rather than what they are quoted (which typically delivers higher averages).
