Posted: April 15th, 2015
A leading UK solicitor has published an opinion piece in which she argues that insurance industry whiplash claims are out of proportion.
Ruth Bennett – a specialist in road traffic compensation claims in the UK – wrote her Op-Ed in response to insurance industry whiplash claims by Aviva Liverpool Ltd that the UK´s “compensation culture” was to blame for a forecast 9% year-on-year increase in whiplash injury compensation claims.
According to Aviva Liverpool Ltd, too many fraudulent and exaggerated claims are still being made, and the company speculated that the total number of whiplash injury claims in 2014/15 would exceed 840,000. The company´s press release proposed further changes to whiplash injury legislation that would reduce the number of claimants eligible to claim compensation for whiplash injuries.
Ms Bennett attacked suggestions that the Statute of Limitations for whiplash injury compensation claims should be reduced to twelve months (from three years in the UK) and proposals that – in order to be eligible for whiplash compensation – a claimant must have displayed symptoms of an injury for at least three months.
She added that the Government has already introduced several changes that make it harder for genuinely injured people to claim compensation when they have been hurt in an accident for which they were not at fault, and said that the need for further changes was unnecessary. Ms Bennett also attacked the insurance industry whiplash claims for being misleading.
In a further attack on the insurance industry whiplash claims, Ms Bennett argued that, if insurance companies believed that a “compensation culture existed”, they should be the ones to address the problem. She said that if it was believed by the insurance industry that whiplash claims were fraudulent or exaggerate, why not challenge them in court.
She concluded by saying that the insurance companies promised car insurance premiums would come down when the previous series of changes to whiplash compensation law were made. It did not materialise last time, she argues, and would be unlikely to happen if further changes were made to appease the insurance industry.
Although Ms Bennett´s comments applied to insurance industry whiplash claims made in the UK, the same story applies in Ireland, where there has been a failure by insurance companies to reduce car insurance premiums despite huge savings in litigation costs due to the introduction of the injuries board. And still the insurance companies complain about whiplash injury compensation claims!
Categories: Whiplash Compensation Claims
