What happened next surprised even BMW, said Papke. Four claims turned out to be fraudulent and in one case a 325i was reported stolen six times in a day. In the end we paid out only six claims, while another three are still under investigation. It was quite an eye-opener. Although we hadn't intended to become insurers, we owed it to our customers to do something about those high premiums - and we ended up making an embarrassing amount of money.
Premiums are now even lower.
BMW's involvement in the insurance industry also led to the smashing of a car hijacking ring involving an eastern European embassy, revealed Papke. It appeared the embassy had been issuing export documents for stolen vehicles. Of the 11 genuine thefts, eight were in Gauteng and the remainder in KwaZulu-Natal. All except one of the hijacked or stolen BMWs were 3-series models. When inflated premiums began to affect the business of a major investor, he said, that was bad news.