Member Article

Suffered whiplash? That’s five to 10 minimum

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few years, or you don’t work in the insurance / personal injury sectors, you’ll know there is a fair bit of tension in the air. A tension so thick you will need a Black and Decker chainsaw to get through it. Yes, I’m talking about personal injury reforms.

I know, I know ‘enough already’ I hear you cry, if it’s not LASPO it’s the small claims limit or MedCo. Everywhere you turn someone in either industry has a sound bite on how they’re right and everyone else is wrong. With that in mind, enter stage left Rob Townend, claims director at Aviva UK General Insurance.

It seems that Rob has been speaking to Insurance Age about the recent Government plans to shelve PI reforms. He’s also not happy about it, but not for his sake, no, he feels bad for the true victim in all of this. You.

Aviva is one of many insurers rallying together to ensure the reforms stay on the table and aren’t forgotten about in the midsts of all this boring ‘Brexit stuff’ as they believe the delays are having a direct impact on the price of premiums.

Townend said;

’We’ll be pushing on all fronts for this to happen and we’ll be continuing to shout about the things that are happening to our customers that we think are wrong. We’re not going to go quiet on this subject.’

Before I continue I just want to clarify that Insurance Premiums are based on:

• Car insurance groups
• Claims history
• Drivers
• Driving conditions
• Medical conditions
• Mileage
• Occupation
• Security
• Vehicle value
• Vehicle age
• Vehicle use
• Address

Now, I don’t know about you but I don’t see ’delay to personal injury reforms’ or ’not getting our own way’ in that list. Nevermind, Rob continued;

’This really is about the consumer and everybody thinks whiplash is a victimless crime, but it’s not. We’re calling for the consultation to be issued because then all stakeholders will have the opportunity to put forward their solution to the problem.’

Here’re a few things that may help Rob Townend better cope with the delay.

Telling your customers information to fit the narrative doesn’t make you the good guys, it just makes you scaremongers It’s odd that you class whiplash as a crime. Have you ever been in an accident? Ever suffered the effects of whiplash? I personally have never had diabetes but I wouldn’t refer to it as a crime You want the consultation to be issued so that the solution can be put forward but what is the solution? Who are the stakeholders? Is it not better to have this delay so that all those involved can come together to come up with a solution that works for everyone?

Where’s the line for reform supporters? Pre LASPO when the personal injury sector and insurance industry shared data and paid inexplicably large sums on referrals, things were joyous and peaceful in the land of whiplash. But what happened? Did someone get greedy? Were feelings hurt?

Regardless of who started it, insurers got their way. They slapped on their best makeup, wore that little black dress and wooed the Government like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. They convinced the Government that there was a compensation culture and that the party was over.

They excused high insurance premiums as the fault of renegade law firms and vowed that only a culture change would reduce them. They were fighting for the true victim, they were fighting for you.

While Solicitors and CMC’s drowned in a sea of LASPO like Irish passengers on the Titanic, Insurance companies watched from their life rafts. Observing the chaos that ensued safe in the knowledge that the few must fall for the many to prosper, and prosper they did.

Fast forward to 2016 and insurance premiums are still higher than a kite on a windy day. Without the excuse of referral fees to lean on, insurance companies turn to fraudulent claims as the true cause of high premiums - again, I refer you to the list above.

When are insurers going to run out of excuses? Let’s say that whiplash is outlawed the small claims limit is raised to £5,000. What next? What is the next big thing that will stand in the way of premiums being reduced?

What happens when people losing money because they are forced to miss work through injury and don’t have means to pursue loss of earnings? They don’t have access to rehabilitation services so are forced to suffer for longer, which means more time off. Eventually, they can’t afford their car insurance and default on payment, who pays then?

To refer to whiplash as a ‘victimless crime’ is hypocritical when you are fighting so hard to remove someone’s right to restorative justice, in essence, a much larger crime and one that in the long run could cause more damage to the general public.

You are right Mr. Townend, the industry does need to get together to put forward solutions to the problem, but it shouldn’t be for the benefit of insurance companies or the personal injury sector, the solutions should only benefit the person who is made to suffer and injury through no fault of their own through the ineptitude of another.

Alternatively, we can generate a Kickstarter for the insurance companies to build a bridge so they can get over it.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kyle Daniels .