Birmingham city centre - dubbed Britain’s whiplash fraud capital by SmartWitness - has the highest car insurance premiums in the whole of the UK, according to new research.

In a survey of all UK cities by SmartWitness Incident Cameras it was revealed that Birmingham’s motor insurance premiums have shot up and are now seven times higher than Aberdeen – the UK’s cheapest city for car insurance.

The price of insuring a BMW 3 Series in Bordesley Green, Birmingham B9 is £1,101.62 per year, compared with Aberdeen city centre which comes in at only £157 for the same car.

Overall Birmingham has more than a fifth of the worst 100 postcodes for motor insurance premiums in the country – 22 in total.

The second worst city in the UK for car insurance is Liverpool with 17 of the top 100; East London is third on 13, Manchester fourth with 11, fifth is North London with nine; sixth is South East London with seven; seventh is Bradford with six postcodes, and eighth worst is Sheffield with three postcodes.

SmartWitness managing director Simon Marsh said: "Part of the reason for the sharp increase for the car insurance premiums is that Birmingham has become the capital of whiplash claims in the UK.

"The six top areas for Third Party Injury (TPI) claims are all in Birmingham and it’s no great surprise that those neighbourhoods mirror very closely those with the highest premiums in our survey."

"Most insurance experts have said that whiplash claims have cost motorists around £90 a year in increased premiums. Over 40% of motor insurance claims are contested but only 2% of SmartWitness claims are, so you can see that having reliable video evidence practically eliminates bogus whiplash claims."

Other UK cities with high numbers of TPI claims are Bradford with four of the top 20 worst postcodes, Manchester next with three, and Liverpool and London have one each.

The cities with low TPI claims also had the lowest insurance premiums. Several of Scotland’s cities had the lowest premiums in the UK and also the lowest number of TPI claims.

Aberdeen had three postcodes in the top 20 lowest areas for TPI claims - and is the cheapest UK city for car insurance.

 

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