A man has been sentenced for orchestrating a fraudulent insurance claim worth nearly £60,000, which he fabricated by pretending to have crashed a hire car while on holiday in California.
Jack Higgins, 38, from Bradford, falsely claimed that he rented a Range Rover during a trip to the United States. According to his story, he swerved to avoid an animal while driving the vehicle on a California highway, crashing it into a wall. Higgins subsequently submitted an insurance claim of £59,987 to cover the damage.
However, the insurer grew suspicious of the claim and referred it to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) for further investigation. Higgins pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation at Leeds Crown Court on March 4, 2025, and was sentenced on April 4, 2025, to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
In addition to repaying the £59,987 he had received from the insurance company, Higgins was ordered to pay £6,000 to IFED to cover the cost of a voice analysis performed during the investigation. He must also complete 300 hours of unpaid work.
Detective Constable Stuart Osbourne, from IFED, stated: “Higgins believed he could get away with defrauding his insurer for a significant amount of money. Fraudulent claims like these ultimately drive up the cost of premiums for honest policyholders.”
The investigation revealed key evidence against Higgins, who had forged documents and made false claims. “Our thorough investigation uncovered that Higgins was in the UK at the time the crash was said to have happened. Additionally, the documents he submitted were falsified,” Osbourne explained.
In January 2019, Higgins had taken out an insurance policy with worldwide cover for hire cars. The following month, he filed a claim, alleging that he had rented a Range Rover from All Star Car Rental in California. He claimed that while driving on Interstate 110, he swerved to avoid an animal and crashed the vehicle into a wall. He also stated that he had paid £59,987 to cover the cost of repairs, submitting supporting evidence including documents from the rental company, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and photos of the damaged car.
The insurer received multiple calls from Higgins seeking updates on the claim. The total sum of £59,987 was eventually paid out in March 2019.
However, in August 2019, an acquaintance of Higgins alerted the insurer that he had been in the UK when the incident allegedly took place. This prompted the insurance company to launch an internal investigation, which uncovered that there was no record of Higgins entering the US around the time of the alleged crash, and that All Star Car Rental did not exist.
The case was referred to IFED, which found that the photos Higgins had provided were taken from a vehicle auction website. Further checks revealed that the LAPD documents submitted by Higgins had been forged. The Californian Highway Patrol (CHP) confirmed that it would have been the appropriate agency to handle the incident on Interstate 110, not the LAPD. Further investigation showed that the SR-1 form, which Higgins claimed to have filed with the LAPD, was never submitted.
Additional scrutiny of Higgins’ bank statements revealed that they, too, had been forged. A search of his laptop confirmed that it had been used to create the false documents.
Higgins was arrested by IFED officers in July 2020. During his interview, he denied any knowledge of the fraudulent claim, suggesting that he had been framed by the individual who reported the fraud to the insurance company.
A voice analysis confirmed that Higgins had made ten phone calls to the insurer, chasing the payment. Despite his claims that the calls might have been made using deepfake technology, further analysis found no evidence to support his allegation. Higgins’ claim that the technology existed in 2019 was also disproven, as officers pointed out that such technology was not yet available for real-time phone calls.
The case serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of submitting fraudulent insurance claims, with Higgins now facing a criminal record and financial penalties. The IFED, in collaboration with the insurance industry, remains committed to tackling such crimes and protecting honest policyholders from the consequences of insurance fraud.
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