Ever since I had a no-fault accident in early 2009, when a trailer towed by a Land Rover skidded on ice and hit my stationary car, I have been subject to at least one call a month from companies encouraging me to seek compensation. Each time I am told that a considerable sum is held in reserve to compensate me for any injury or discomfort that either I or my wife have suffered, and all the callers seem to have full details of the incident. Apart from our extreme displeasure resulting from the damage to our car and the consequent disruption to our lives, neither of us suffered any injury, and we have no interest in pretending that we did. No doubt these companies thrive on their cut of compensation payments of this sort and no doubt this is another factor in driving up the cost of motor insurance generally.

I do not intend to abet them in dishonest conspiracies of this nature but I'm disturbed that access to insurance details seems so widely available to third parties. Is there anything that can be done to stop these nuisance calls? We are subscribed to the telephone preference system so that in principle we should not be receiving cold calls from within the UK, but I imagine that companies who indulge in this sort of thing, are unlikely to respect the telephone preference system?