A team of 25 investigators based at Aviva in Norwich has been tasked to fight the spread of so-called 'crash for cash' scams, where bogus or deliberate accidents are used to enable fraudulent whiplash claims to be made.

In 2013, Aviva detected fraud on one in nine injury compensation claims. Motor injury fraud represents over half of Aviva's detected fraud and 50pc of this is now organised in nature – where multiple fraudulent claims are submitted by individuals or gangs for bogus or 'slam on' accidents and fake injuries.

The scale of organised fraud is also increasing – for example, fraudulent claims made in Ireland and London have been linked by Aviva.

In response to the rising problem of organised fraud, Aviva has established a team of 25 people based in the company's head office in Norwich dedicated to the detection and investigation of organised motor insurance fraud. The team has grown from just six staff about five years ago.

Aviva was the first insurer to establish a team of this kind, and is now the biggest and most successful at detecting, investigating and prosecuting fraud in the industry. So far this year the team have identified 21pc more suspect claims than the same period last year and currently have over 6500 suspicious injury claims linked to organised fraud.

Aviva have also found that fraudulent 'slam-ons' – where fraudsters target innocent motorists to deliberately cause a motor accident - increased by 51pc in 2013.

These induced accidents have a value of over £14m and are at the highest levels ever detected by the insurer.

Aviva recently revealed the nation's hotspots for crash for cash. The good news is that Norwich and Norfolk were nowhere near the top of the table.

However, advice from Aviva is to remain alert to fraud.

See footage of how gangs carry out 'crash for crash' scams above.