What Is Paid Ad Spoofing?

How To Spot A Car Insurance Scam Before You Report A Claim

At NFU Mutual, we want to ensure that our customers are aware of the risks of car insurance scams including paid ad spoofing and understand how to avoid unintentionally contacting fraudulent firms.

Paid ad spoofing is where other businesses pay for an advert to appear at the top of the search engine results page, often giving the incorrect impression that they are the company you are searching for. These adverts look legitimate, so you might not realise you’re not talking to your insurance company. These businesses pretend to be legitimate companies and often look to take advantage of those who have recently been involved in a car accident and are looking to report their claim. Customers are led to believe they are dealing with their insurer, but they are dealing with someone entirely different.

What happens to personal information if a spoofed ad is clicked on?

Companies who serve paid spoof ads sell personal information to a fraudulent Claims Management Company (CMC), who offer claims management services and provide services like advice on claims, hire cars, vehicle recovery and repair and assistance making a personal injury claim. You might think your insurer is covering these costs, but you could end up footing the bill yourself.

What’s the impact?

When CMCs provide a service, all costs they incur are in your name. Some things to be aware of:

Excessive car hire costs: the CMC will often make unreasonable claims in your name, and you could be responsible for any element of the hire bill that the CMC can’t recover.

Legal implications: all losses covered by a CMC are in your name, so this gives the CMC a legal right to recover these costs from you directly.

Denial of insurance coverage: CMCs might prevent you from using the insurance you’ve paid for.

Data privacy concerns: your name, address, date of birth and other personal details have been stored by the CMC, and they may sell this data on to other parties.

Warranty issues: CMCs might use repair shops that don’t maintain the same standards as your insurer, potentially voiding your car’s warranty.

To help ensure you are actually speaking to us, when contacting NFU Mutual:

Be cautious of paid search results: companies often pay search engines like Google to appear as adverts at the top of the search engine results page based on your search. Paid search ads have the title ‘Sponsored’.

Verify the company & website address (URL): motorists will often call the number they’ve found on Google and assume it is their insurer. It has been reported to us that these companies will tell you they are NFU Mutual when they are not.

Check the website of the firm you’re contacting. Our correct URL is: www.nfumutual.co.uk. This is our home page - if the Google link doesn’t take you to an NFU Mutual URL, it will not be legitimate. If you’re unsure about who you’re speaking to, hang up and check your policy documents or our website for details about how to make a claim.

The best way to protect yourself from ad spoofing scams is to ensure that you’ve saved your insurer’s phone number in your mobile phone.

The number for NFU Mutual motor claims is: 0808 282 652 – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

To find out more contact your local office, NFU Mutual Cobham on 01932 865667 Cobham@nfumutual.co.uk