New medical panels to assess whiplash claims
The Ministry of Justice has announced plans whereby claims of whiplash injuries sustained during road accidents will be assessed by new independent medical panels, in order to curb fraudulent compensation claims.
The Transport Research Laboratory recently stated that 60 per cent of the more than half a million whiplash claims made in the UK each year are bogus, according to official figures.
So-called ‘whiplash cheats’, whose activities are said to have forced up motor insurance premiums across the board, will be subject to scrutiny by the panels, which will only allow evidence from accredited professionals to be considered.
The new measures, which are set to be introduced next year, were announced by the justice secretary Chris Grayling and new roads minister Robert Goodwill, as part of an eyecatching new package of initiatives aimed at reducing the cost of motoring for ‘hard-working families’.
But the plans are also likely to be welcomed by hard-working hauliers, which have long been potential targets for spurious whiplash claims. One recent case, in which four occupants of a people carrier made fraudulent claims having deliberately veered across lanes to collide with an HGV, could have cost the haulier in question £75,000 had the claimants’ dangerous behaviour not been caught on a camera installed within the truck.
Said Grayling: “We are turning the tide on the compensation culture and helping hard working people by tackling high insurance premiums and other motoring costs… It’s not right that people who cheat the insurance system get away with it while forcing up the price for everyone else – so we are now going after whiplash fraudsters and will keep on driving premiums down.”
In-car video accident camera supplier Smart Witness said that the policy may reduce numbers of opportunist claimants, but was unlikely to deter what it called ‘habitual insurance fraudsters’. Smart Witness managing director Simon Marsh said: “Sadly these measures will not solve the problem of the hard-core of bogus whiplash claimants who have made a career out of milking the insurance system. Habitual insurance fraudsters know exactly what to say in detail about their injuries to get the payout they are looking for and the medical examination panel will struggle to disprove what they are saying.
“These moves are a step in the right direction however and will reduce some opportunist claims but they won’t deter the criminal gangs that put through hundreds of thousands of bogus claims every year.”
He continued: “Another problem for the medical panel is that they will not be able to prove whether the claimants were actually in the vehicle at the time of the accident, or whether the accident was the cause of their medical condition.
“Given this number of variables there will still be a significant element of doubt which will mean most insurers will not want to go to court to contest these bogus claims.”
Smart Witness claims that the installation of its cameras has resulted in a 20 per cent reduction in insurance premiums for some hauliers.
