This is the English version of an article first published in Polish: read the Polish original. It refers to source material: TVN24 Warszawa. The text is our own commentary, not a translation or copy of that source.
Residents of one apartment building on aleja Rzeczypospolitej in Wilanów are finding car liability insurance policies in their accounts at the Insurance Guarantee Fund (UFG) that they never took out. The case first surfaced back in April, when one resident received a payment demand for almost ten thousand zloty for a car he had never even seen. By the end of September, 21 people had reported the matter to police.
According to the Warsaw II District Police Headquarters, all the victims live in the same building. One of them found nine policies in his UFG account issued in his name, surname and correct PESEL number, but listing addresses he had never lived at. The case is being handled by officers from the Warszawa Wilanów police station. They are checking how many fraudulent contracts were actually taken out and whether all the reports are connected. Posts online mentioned more than two hundred fake policies, but police have not confirmed that figure yet.
How to check if this affects you too
Anyone can log in for free on the UFG website and check the history of policies taken out under their own PESEL number. The Fund also runs a notification service. Once you activate it, you get an SMS or email every time a new OC or AC policy, or a claim, appears in the database linked to your data. Insurers can now also check a client's PESEL number against a restriction register before issuing a policy, which is meant to make it harder to sign contracts on stolen data.
If you find a policy in your account that you never took out, specialists advise reporting it to the police or the prosecutor's office as soon as possible. It is also worth contacting the insurance company named on the contract right away and disputing it in writing, referring to your report to law enforcement. Wilanów residents, especially those from the building on Rzeczypospolitej, have been doing exactly that for the past few weeks. Experts stress, though, that this kind of fraud can affect anyone, regardless of address, so checking your own UFG account takes just a few minutes and costs nothing.