PI lawyers unimpressed by Jack Straw’s proposals for motor insurance reform
Jack Straw’s motor insurance regulation Bill has drawn the ire of personal injury lawyers.
The Bill, which received its first reading last week, proposes that whiplash claims be restricted to cases where there is “genuine evidence of injury”, and that claimant lawyer’s fee for cases in the road traffic accident portal be halved since the portal costs the lawyer only £100 to operate.
Introducing his Bill, Straw said: “Often such claims are for whiplash, which is not so much an injury, more a profitable invention of the human imagination—undiagnosable except by third-rate doctors in the pay of the claims management companies or personal injury lawyers.
“Whiplash now accounts for 80% of all personal injury claims, adding about £66 to every premium. Latest figures suggest that 1,200 claims for whiplash are now made in the UK each day. The bait of £3,500 in compensation for no discernible injury and sometimes for no accident at all, which features so prominently in the text messages, telephone calls and high-pressure advertising, characterises this extensive and grubby industry.”
However, Deborah Evans, chief executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: “Jack Straw is deluded if he thinks a lawyer could possibly give advice to an injured person for the price of £100.
“In all cases the solicitor needs to talk to the client to understand the symptoms, and the impact of the injury on the client’s life, as well as obtaining a medical report. These were the factors taken into account when fixed costs for road traffic accidents were agreed with the insurance industry last year.”
In June, Straw made an intervention in the referral fees debate with his report into the “racket” of customer details being passed to personal injury lawyers. Earlier this month, the government banned the use of referral fees in personal injury cases (see The claim game).
