# Erosion of victims rights



## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

The Chancellor announced yesterday his clear intention to:-

Remove a victims right to claim damages for soft tissue injury; and

To increase the Small Claims Limit for personal injury claims from £1000 to £5000.

Think this won't affect you? Think again.

If you or somebody close to you has suffered a soft tissue/whiplash injury you will know how devastating this can be. Under the proposals announced you will not be entitled to claim for damages for your injury.

The offset is that the Insurance Industry claim they will be able to reduce insurance premiums by around £40-£50.

They promised premium reductions in recent times following which the Government introduced a scheme dealing with all injury claims with a value up to £25,000.

The Govt increased the value of injury claims slightly and Claimants were then expected to meet some of the cost of their claim by paying a percentage of their damages towards their legal fees.

I certainly didn't see my premiums come down over the last couple of years. I suspect many of you didn't either and if you did that was more likely due to market forces and not the benevolence of insurers.

Moving on to the increase in the Small Claims Limit...

For the vast majority of injury claims other than soft tissue (which as above you will not be able to claim for) you will find that there will be little by way of a legal profession to assist you!

You may have strong views on this and think this should come about but think of the following...

With access to justice removed and/or eroded where would you turn to? Would you know how to go about claiming loss of earnings or treatment expenses, aids or equipment? Imagine that you have an accident and are off work without pay, do you think an insurance company would blaze a trail to knock on your door to write you a cheque?

£40-£50 a year off your insurance sounds like a great headline figure doesn't it?

If soft tissue injuries cannot be claimed for the following applies:-

The Govt will not recover NHS Charges or Recoverable Benefits from the insurer. Where will that shortfall be met?

If Law Firms disappear quite apart from the victim being unrepresented there will be a reduction in income to the Treasury.

Corporation Tax, Income Tax and NI for the thousands of people working for both Claimant firms, Defendant Firms and the Insurance Companies themselves would disappear and many would ironically find themselves having to claim benefits.

Associated industry, service and suppliers will be impacted further reducing income to the Treasury. These will be very real amounts and to my mind would only mean the tax payer having to pay more with victims having rights stripped from them.

In other words your £40-£50 alleged saving would I suggest be very quickly outstripped by loss of income to the Treasury leading to an inevitability of having to raise that money some other way...tax.

If you care about your rights to fair compensation I implore you to let your MP know that removing your right to claim for soft tissue injury is not on.

I would further implore you to send a clear message to the Govt that moving the Small Claims Limit, further eroding access to justice is not on by signing the E Petition as below.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/113810

Thank you for taking the time to read and bearing with me on this long post.


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## Caledoniandream (Oct 9, 2009)

After running a Large transport company for several years, and having between 20 and 30 claims a year ( for accidents that didnt happen) I am glad that the Governement at least tried to find a solution.
The different insurance companies paid in the last 10 years a 6 figure amount to people, who had disputabele injuries. (No damage to see on our vehicles)
To people who where probably not even naar the incident scene, and people who clearly are frauding (insurers paid out to avoid bigger claims and forever running court cases).
This affect the premiums, and indirect the public, als we had to charge more for our services.
Anybody ever involved in "crash for cash" will see the benefit of the Governements actions.
And yes, I agree the will be always innocent people negative affected, but anything you do to cover a big area of fraudulent business, will always affect a small honest minority.
If you realise what percentage of pay out of insurance money is for whiplash (and has gone up over the years) while our cars have become zo much safer, you wonder what game people play.
In the 70's when there where hardly headrests in cars, the word whiplash didn't excist in our dictionary.
So why does it happen so much nowadays?


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## GleemSpray (Jan 26, 2014)

It's not just crash for cash crooks either. I had a non-fault small collision about 18 years back and the insurance company INSISTED I go to see their private doctor, who in turn INSISTED that I would have whiplash, even if it took time to appear. They claimed for whiplash against the other side, even though I wasn't feeling any real pain. 

It was clearly a well practiced scheme.


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## Darlofan (Nov 24, 2010)

Simple way to reduce it is to only payout for losses. So if you have time off work you get paid your salary. So if you're not working you don't get anything. 

I was rear ended early last year and like post above was told by my insurance an hour after accident that pain might come later and I needed to see a doctor. Yes pain did come the next day and was uncomfortable for quite a while. I received a payout but hadn't needed to take anytime off work as I'm quite lucky my job is flexible so I adjusted my duties.


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## Bero (Mar 9, 2008)

Good idea, get rid of all these wishy washy whiplash claims and the ambulance chasers who ride their coat tails.

Although I'm sceptical there will be any material reductions in insurance costs. But that's fine. I seriously doubt the figures given anyway, £40 per policy per year means 1 in 30 people are claiming for whiplash (say £1600 payout) EVERY year, I understand there would be other associated costs so not exact, there is NO WAY claiming is that prevalent.


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## Rayaan (Jun 1, 2014)

Sounds good to me. Whiplash - a condition which cannot exactly be disproven and it doesn't stop you from doing anything. In fact, the advice given by medical professionals is to keep the neck mobile and not put a brace/collar on. 

Too many sick notes being given for it as far as Im concerned too. Fair enough if you're a builder but not if you're an office worker!


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

I'd like to see it made a condition that Insce Cos give a written undertaking to reduce premiums - like that's going to happen.......


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

Caledoniandream said:


> After running a Large transport company for several years, and having between 20 and 30 claims a year ( for accidents that didnt happen) I am glad that the Governement at least tried to find a solution.
> 
> The different insurance companies paid in the last 10 years a 6 figure amount to people, who had disputabele injuries. (No damage to see on our vehicles)
> 
> ...


The problem is the proposals do nothing to address fraud. They will remove the legal profession in the main reducing access to justice but fraud remains unabated by the proposals. Arguably they will allow Claims Management Companies back in to the arena and my bet is fraud will increase.

It is of course an insurers prerogative as to whether to fight a claim or not and for a Claimant to prove their claim on a balance of probabilities.

Fundamental dishonesty findings in civil claims from April onwards mean that if you exaggerate one aspect the whole claim is rejected. Similarly if you support a claim when making a claim you are tainted to the extent either/or claim is said/found to be exaggerated.

It is open to a Judge and or Defendant to seek committal proceedings and for criminal sanctions to apply. Insurers can and do go after the dishonest Claimant and will for example place charges on property and in some cases I've heard of compel sale to realise their costs back.



GleemSpray said:


> It's not just crash for cash crooks either. I had a non-fault small collision about 18 years back and the insurance company INSISTED I go to see their private doctor, who in turn INSISTED that I would have whiplash, even if it took time to appear. They claimed for whiplash against the other side, even though I wasn't feeling any real pain.
> 
> It was clearly a well practiced scheme.


To a degree I understand what you are saying but how can an insurance company insist YOU do anything let alone YOU make a claim?

Ironically if you weren't injured and/or not to the extent the claim YOU brought said you were then if said claim were brought now you would arguably get snagged under the fundamental dishonesty rules.



Darlofan said:


> Simple way to reduce it is to only payout for losses. So if you have time off work you get paid your salary. So if you're not working you don't get anything.
> 
> I was rear ended early last year and like post above was told by my insurance an hour after accident that pain might come later and I needed to see a doctor. Yes pain did come the next day and was uncomfortable for quite a while. I received a payout but hadn't needed to take anytime off work as I'm quite lucky my job is flexible so I adjusted my duties.


Problem is in order to evidence a loss such as loss of earnings you will have to obtain a medical report. If you have soft tissue injuries only then the cost of the medical report is not recoverable as you can't claim for injury!

In other words to claim loss of earnings it will cost you anywhere up to £250 that YOU will have to stand. Same goes for say medical treatment etc if you can't readily or within a reasonable time access the same via the NHS.

On that score is it right the NHS stands the cost with no recompense? Currently if you attend Hospital requiring treatment following an accident the compensating insurer has to meet SOME but not all of the NHS charges.

Subsequently if you are off work or claiming other benefits as a result, the compensating insurers pays back like for like benefits. For example if you need to claim Employment Support Allowance as you can't work and you claim loss of earnings the insurers pays back the ESA to the Govt.

Not really sure where this shortfall will be met from other than inevitably having to increase taxes and/or further reducing public spending.



Bero said:


> Good idea, get rid of all these wishy washy whiplash claims and the ambulance chasers who ride their coat tails.
> 
> Although I'm sceptical there will be any material reductions in insurance costs. But that's fine. I seriously doubt the figures given anyway, £40 per policy per year means 1 in 30 people are claiming for whiplash (say £1600 payout) EVERY year, I understand there would be other associated costs so not exact, there is NO WAY claiming is that prevalent.


Very broadly speaking soft tissue injuries cover a wide spectrum of injury. Taking say whiplash injury it is often said people fall into one of 3 categories.

Recovery within weeks to a few months, recovery up to 2 years and over 2 years permanent.

Permanent can be from the mildly intrusive to chronic, escalating into all sorts of nasty conditions with or without psychological overlay.

Yes people will inevitably bring claims that are exaggerated but there are already ways and means of dealing with that without throwing the baby out with the bath water. A more robust approach to those people could and should be followed through.

Numbers of RTA claims are falling year on year...

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...4356/cases-registered-cru-2014-15.csv/preview



Rayaan said:


> Sounds good to me. Whiplash - a condition which cannot exactly be disproven and it doesn't stop you from doing anything. In fact, the advice given by medical professionals is to keep the neck mobile and not put a brace/collar on.
> 
> Too many sick notes being given for it as far as Im concerned too. Fair enough if you're a builder but not if you're an office worker!


Yes and no. Great way of demonstrating what forces are typically involved in a whiplash injury. Take one medicine ball and throw it at a person who is in a sat position and not expecting it. Relevance? Medicine ball roughly translates to the weight of the head. With those levels of forces being exerted on the neck/spine is it that hard to accept an injury can occur? Of course everybody is different and no two people would be affected in exactly the same way in the exactly the same accident.

Sick or more accurately fit notes are indeed arguably issued too readily. A GP or other medical professional can stipulate an individual is capable of doing x, y and z but it's easier just to say can't do anything.

That's something the medical profession should address and to my mind the answer is pretty simple. After say 1-2 weeks if you still require more time off work you have to go to a designated GP with specialist training and not the friendly family GP who may be all to readily prepared to sign off when otherwise fit to do something.



slim_boy_fat said:


> I'd like to see it made a condition that Insce Cos give a written undertaking to reduce premiums - like that's going to happen.......


Won't ever happen; as per original post the deal they cut with the Govt previously was in consideration of any personal injury claim with a value up to £25k it would ultimately be subject to fixed costs if it fell outside of the Ministry of Justice Fast Track Portal.

Combined with the reducing numbers of claims as per the Govts own figures this means more profit for the insurer...and yet have you seen your insurance decrease significantly, if at all?

Sadly the public has been duped, access to justice restricted in recent times and going forwards for millions it will be removed all together.

Factor in the black hole created by no more NHS Charges or CRU being recovered then what we have is a right old stitch up...one that you and I will surely end up paying for with more tax or some other public funding cut?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...24358/recoveries-made-cru-2014-15.csv/preview

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa.../file/300289/Monthly_Recoveries_2013-2014.pdf

Funny that the figures of recoverable benefits for RTAs is seemingly not readily available


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## Rayaan (Jun 1, 2014)

Still a good idea - so many fraudulent claims around here. When you work in the community you find out things not many people know.

scenario 1 - Person gets out of taxi, deliberately walks behind it and it touches them whilst the driver is reversing. Falls over deliberately screaming in pain - 6 months later - claim comes through the door with no "real" injury whatsoever

scenario 2 - Whiplash - can't be disproven - anyone and everyone in any car accident claims this, even for bumps and scrapes.

scenario 3 - Trapped fingers in taxi doors - guess what - claim

scenario 4 - walks into a tree in Matalan car park - claim (this is the reason the trees now say "trip hazard" on them

Scenario 5 - steps off a high kerb - falls over - claim! I mean seriously, it takes the mickey sometimes, just watch where you walk!

Scenario 6 - kid falls over in school - claim

scenario 7 - Guy falls of massage table deliberately and claims

List goes on and on and on. These are the ones that I know about - Im sure there are so many more!


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

"Won't ever happen"

That's what I was indicating with the double 'roll eyes'  - be nice if it did though..........:wall:


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

Rayaan said:


> Still a good idea - so many fraudulent claims around here. When you work in the community you find out things not many people know.
> 
> scenario 1 - Person gets out of taxi, deliberately walks behind it and it touches them whilst the driver is reversing. Falls over deliberately screaming in pain - 6 months later - claim comes through the door with no "real" injury whatsoever
> 
> ...


Scenario 1 - sounds either a staged/contrived accident! Again insurer prerogative whether to fight or not. Agree though really should look to make it compulsory to notify much sooner than 6 months.

Scenario 2 - Clearly not true. Stats are out there, EVERY injury claim pursued following an RTA has to be notified to the Compensation Recovery Unit, part of the Department for Works and Pensions. Less people claim than there are accidents. Fact.

Injury can occur at low velocity, albeit it has been an argument insurers have run for many a year. Colleague had an accident last week and looking at his car (lead car in multiple pile up) you would say it was a nothing accident. Other cars were absolutely mangled and clear write offs. That force travels somewhere...and ultimately transfers to the occupant.

Obviously there is no black and white test for whiplash but equally reduction in range of movement, Waddell's signs etc all build a picture.

Scenario 3 - good luck to them, how on earth is that anybody's fault. Claim intimated but was it successful? I just can't see on what basis it would be.

Scenario 4 - ditto.

Scenario 5 - not convinced that is an actionable claim and even if it were, if this was a publicly maintained area, there is a wide reaching statutory defence afforded to the Local Authority which 99.9% of the time is successful. It is pretty much impossible to successfully go against a Local Authority for a trip/slip/fall claim.

Scenario 6 - again claim may have been intimated but what for? Lack of supervision? Can't see that one got anywhere.

Scenario 7 - how do you know it was deliberate? Sounds bent as but more importantly did he get a happy ending?



I get your gist I really do, my point is there are existing means to deal with this and much better ways of improving than simply denying people point blank proper recompense. It's a terribly thought through change, more so the no soft tissue injury claim at all rather than the increasing small claims limit. I personally think what is awarded for minor soft tissue injuries is too much. If that were reduced to a more sensible baseline I dare say less people would bother claiming.


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## MDC250 (Jan 4, 2014)

slim_boy_fat said:


> "Won't ever happen"
> 
> That's what I was indicating with the double 'roll eyes'  - be nice if it did though..........:wall:


You are OK anyway, this only applies to England and Wales


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## The_Bouncer (Nov 24, 2010)

The 'problem' with some of these claims over the years and extended costs are also partly to blame at:

Having worked with many large fleet companies who control their own 'in house' insurance, they only have a finite amount of insurance agents within their departments.

The average workload for the guys I knew back then was an average caseload of between 800 to 1200 active claims on a monthly basis.

With the legal stage liability notifications and the reduced investigation timeframes to work with these claims meant that in 95% of whiplash claims, they pretty much offered a reduced payout in the first effect to negate the claim. It was also down to the agents to get the claims shut & closed as quick as possible. (Company targets/Bonus awards).

Purely a (excuse the pun) damage limitation exercise.

In the big scheme of things, I suppose if you can make say x10 payouts of £1,000 instead of 6 payouts of £5,000 then that's where it makes sense (from that perspective)

But. - Times that by claimant success volume by the number of insurance companies out there by the number of Insurance agents wanting the claim closed, versus the legal time frames for which they must all abide by (can be fined from Insurance ombudsmen if show slackness from initial claim notification and stage dragging).

Then Wow. - No wonder we have a 'Houston' for sure.

Unfortunately in real terms this means that any scammers putting a claim in for whiplash will majority of the time receive a payout. For the unscrupulous types, it's called playing keeerr-ching. For everyone else it's a case of "Why has my insurance gone up.....again"

What should have been done ?.

I think there should have been a central insurance database, used by a senior based team of people who have the authority, that would have been able to cross check claims and people details with information being provided by the insurance agents around the UK.

Sadly this was not in place. -I remember hearing a story about a guy being found out scam claiming and it turned out, over a short period he had claimed for nearly 90 incidents on roundabout nudges and taps.

In fact it's here > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...aged-90-crashes-to-claim-insurance-money.html

Needed.

Central insurance database, more local insurance agents, more insurance fraud detectives

to start at least...

Sorry for rambling. Hate reading stories of people being stitched up by these scammers  - None of it should be happening.

The world of claims is there for a reason and is necessary. However, it's the honest people out there that pay the most.


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## slim_boy_fat (Jun 23, 2006)

MDC250 said:


> You are OK anyway, this only applies to England and Wales


Nothing stops premium increases up here 'though.


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## millns84 (Jul 5, 2009)

I've not read the whole thread so don't know where it's up to, but...

It'll never happen... Well, the SCT limit might increase but they'll never stop people from being able to claim for soft tissue injuries. 

People are correct about the amount of fraud involved, it's literally at all levels too. It's not just cash for crash schemes, it's normal people seeing an opportunity to claim they were injured when they weren't or to exaggerate those injuries to get literally thousands.

Solicitors are also partly to blame - Dodgy associations with claims management companies, owning medical agencies who provide reports for their clients (they were meant to put an end to this)... Fingers in all pies really and they've really pushed the compensation culture in the UK.


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## Rebel007 (May 7, 2013)

I have read a lot but not all of this thread because it has bought back too many bad memories for me.

A long time ago I was involved in a major road accident, the other person was drunk with over 3 times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, he was on the wrong (my) side of the road and according to police forensic evidence he was speeding doing over 90mph in a 60 mph designated zone.

Since I was travelling in the opposite direction and driving at around 60mph (the police evidence stated I was traveling at about 45 mph taking into account skid marks etc) I ended up in hospital with numerous broken bones including a neck injury which I was eventually told was "COMPENSATIONITUS" the other driver was put in a police cell to sober up so I was later told.

I obviously disputed this vigorously and was eventually sent to another consultant and a second hospital which actually had an MRI scanner (my local hospital didn't have one at that time, as I said this was a long time ago) within 48 hours I was been admitted to a neurosurgery unit where spinal surgery was carried out, my neck had been fractured in 3 separate places none of which showed up on x-ray but all were compressing my spinal chord and have left long term life threatening injuries leaving me needing to use a mobility scooter to get around. All from a DISPUTED (originally) soft tissue injury.

The government should keep their noses out of health issues and get on with trying to repair the damage they or their colleagues from opposing parties have done to this country, the only people qualified to diagnose injuries and how they affect victims are members of the medical profession and even they get it wrong!

In my case this change in legislation would have been a triple whammy, already legal aid as it was then is no longer available for innocent people to claim, against the guilty party (the other driver was prosecuted by the police and pleaded guilty in criminal court) whammy number 1.

I would have been unable to claim for all the injuries I sustained as many were initially believed to be soft tissue injuries and it was nearly 10 years later before the broken spine was discovered) whammy number 2.

This accident happened in the early 80's, long before the big compensation awards were becoming prevalent in fact had the accident happened 5 or 10 years later I would have probably received an award approaching the 6 figure mark due to the severity of my injuries This legislation would make things even more difficult for people like me!

The fact my medical certificates state my life expectancy is severely restricted and whilst no dates were recorded on the discharge letters from hospital I was told it was unlikely that I would reach the age of 40 (they got that wrong as well but this time in my favour) however as a result I haven't been able to obtain life insurance at a reasonable cost for a very long time.

To make matters worse whilst my initial marriage broke up as a result of the injuries I suffered and the fact I was struggling to get back to work we lost our house as I couldn't pay the mortgage, I have now got a second wife who is in many ways far too good for me (so she tells me lol) but again this legislation would have made things worse, not better, when I finally received my compensation award the government were the first people with their hands out, all the money they had paid me in benefits was reclaimed from the compensation before I got a penny.

There were by the way no claims management companies around in those days so everything had to be paid for by the claimant or in some rare cases via legal aid if there was a strong enough case.

Net result the government want first claim on any compensation (whammy 3) want to make claiming even harder *(It took TEN YEARS to get a court hearing date!)* its cheaper for insurance companies if the innocent party die that if they receive lifelong injuries


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