A rising number of homeowners are reporting burglaries that have not actually taken place so that they can claim money on their insurance policies .
Statistics collected from the Cambridgeshire Police reveal that the number of false burglaries being reported in the area in recent months has risen to ten and is something which chief constable Julie Spence says is due to people trying to claim money on their insurance policies.
“We have identified a trend in the false reporting of burglary and this may be linked to the recession . Though the economic downturn may not cause law abiding people to steal from others directly, it may prompt these kind of offences,” she was quoted as saying to the Telegraph newspaper .
Last month, the insurance firm Zurich found that the number of false claims related to boat insurance had increased dramatically during the first four months of 2009.