“WHY has my motor insurance gone up so much when I’ve got a perfect driving record, my car is the same, and haven’t moved house?”

I kept getting asked questions like this in the months after the 2010 general election.

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I couldn’t, initially, give a good answer to these questions. Indeed, the objective evidence pointed the other way.

Premiums should have been falling, not rising. Since 2000 reported personal injury road accidents across Great Britain have dropped by 40 per cent . Thefts of vehicles are now a quarter of their 2002 level.

I eventually found the answer. A new ‘industry’ had grown. Personal data of those involved in an accident was being traded between car repairers, recovery firms, claims companies, the insurers, and the lawyers for ‘referral fees’ – of around £600 a time – on the prospect of claims for whiplash, many inflated, quite a few fraudulent.

I introduced a bill in Parliament in 2011 to tackle these issues. The Government agreed to take on three of its four key provisions – including a ban on referral fees.

These reforms have been partially successful. On average premium levels have dropped 20 per cent since their peak in 2012. But they are now starting to creep up. Why? Because loopholes in the regulations for the passing of personal data have been found and because of the persistence of fraudulent claims.

Take my constituent Claire Smith (not her real name), who received letters demanding over £1,000 for an accident she’d never had. Her insurer added that her premium would rise by hundreds of pounds.

Ms Smith found pictures online of the claimant at a festival after the alleged accident and a post by him stating that he had had an accident a month previously. My constituent also had a vehicle inspection soon after the date of the alleged accident, which found no damage.

After sharing all this evidence with her insurer Ms Smith has been defending the claim. With such overwhelming evidence I am sure Ms Smith will be okay in the end, but many aren’t.

The House of Commons’ Library has provided information that shows the number of whiplash claimsis up 13 per cent on last year. Data published by Aviva estimate that insurers pay out £2.5bn on whiplash and that it adds £93 to yearly motor premiums. Further reforms are clearly needed.