Life insurance fraudsters caught out after attending doctors appointment in his own name.

Attending a doctors checkup, six months after he allegedly died in Afghanistan, scupered a Gloucester mans wife attempt to claim £300,000 on his life insurance policy.

At a court hearing last week in Gloucester, a judge sentenced 34-year-old Akhtary to 60 hours of community service and his former wife, Anne Akhtary, to 40 hours of community service but suspended prison sentences of nine months each.

Anne Akhtary, 43, admitted trying to claim the payout from the Norwich Union insurance company by using a forged death certificate from Afghanistan claiming that her husband had died of brain trauma in an accident.

Within weeks, however, Norwich Union investigators were tipped off about the doctor's appointment.

"They were told that Mr. Akhtary's GP had seen him at his practice and he had attended hospital so it was not the most sophisticated way of going about making a false claim," said prosecutor James Cranfield.

Akhtary had continued to live openly in Gloucester after his supposed death, working and paying taxes, Cranfield said.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Mark Horton said fake insurance claims were serious but that the couple had been less than sophisticated in their attempt and that no money had been lost.

Anyone tempted to beat the credit crunch and commit life insurance fraud is advised against it. As financial institutions have already began to tighten up their procedures in light of the recent high profile John Darwin missing canoeist case.

£30 million a year saved by removing uninsured cars

Research by The Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) has revealed that the introduction of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) has resulted in 10% fewer accidents since 2006.

ANPR works by automatically reading the number plate of any car that passes by. It then searches a number of databases including the insurance bureaus database and alerts the police to any suspect cars.

The technology was original developed as a counter terrorism measure in London during the IRAs bombing campaign. Since then it has been widely adopted by the UK’s police forces.

A recent blitz has resulted in some 200,000 uninsured cars being taken off the road in two years.

The MIB said as a direct result of this there has been 10% fewer accidents since 2006-saving the Insurance industry £30 million a year.

Crazy people

A recent report revealed some worrying information, around 3.8million drivers put other road users at risk by not being able to see properly mainly because they think specs make them look ugly.

Unsurprisingly the worst offenders are women, some 14 million female motorists need glasses to meet the legal requirement of reading a car number plate at 70ft.

But one in four regularly drives without them — and one in five has had a crash or close shave within the past year as a result.

Incredibly one in 16 believes they are safe to get behind the wheel despite their poor vision.



The same report also named the most bizarre insurance claims recieved in a single year, so funny in fact that we just had to mention them.

A motorist called his insurance company after a camel kicked his car.

While another said his windscreen was melted by a crashing Harrier jet.

In another case, a car windscreen was shattered by a nut thrown by a squirrel.

One car was dented when a naked pedestrian ran across it for a joke.

And another claim came after a woman put shampoo in her tank thinking it was petrol.

Keep an eye on the kids

Children cause more than 850,000 accidents in the home every year and the resulting damage costs nearly £230 million.

According to new research young children are the number one cause of damage in their households, and are responsible for 42 per cent of all accidents.

It may be surprising to learn that teenagers are not the biggest culprits as far as causing accidents are concerned, they account for just one in five accidents around the home or 250,000 accidents a year, resulting in £68 million worth of damage.

With the summer holidays in full swing and the usual English summertime weather, school-age children will be in and around the home for most of the day. So parents are being warned to keep an eye on their clumsy kids.

And even those without kids can’t escape the damage they cause, because of the 850,000 accidents last year, 250,000 of them happened in someone else's home while visiting.

Funny insurance commercial

The car accident scam

A new insurance crime wave is sweeping Britain and is costing innocent motorists thousands. The scam which has been used in the states for a number of years varies in its level of sophistication but usually takes the following form fraudsters will fill a car with as many passengers as possible they then drive in front of an innocent motorist wait for them to be distracted by something like adjusting the radio and brake suddenly causing the innocent motorist to hit the rear of the fraudsters car.

In the eyes of the insurers the innocent victim will be at fault and the fraudsters will often use bogus witnesses who where not even at the scene of the accident and fictitious passengers. Then follows bogus injury claims for all the passengers in the car along with bogus claims for car hire and hugely exaggerated repair bills. In some cases a simple accident can cost an insurer £30,000.

The fraudsters use old cars and tend to target cars that are a few years old with lone drivers. They will often use a round about as the scene of the accident. If you are caught in this situation beware of any witnesses who appear from nowhere blaming you and passengers claiming whip lash after minor accidents.