Claims,
Claims, Claims
In our last edition of Re: Magazine
Michael Mulcare’s article on
Exaggerated Claims pointed out the
dangers to Claimants of feigning
symptoms in order to try and persuade
Courts to award more compensation
than was truly deserved. Such behaviour
on the part of Claimants feeds into
the media publicity that would like to
influence us all to believe that people
who claim are nothing but charlatans
and scroungers, inflating our insurance
premiums for no good reason.
The latest attack on Claimants,
instigated by Jack Straw but taken on by
the current Government, is an argument
to the effect that most if not all whiplash
injury claims are spurious. The truth is
some are, some aren’t.
In my former life as a full time Lawyer,
before taking on my current managerial
role, I spent my time litigating, and
much of my work was helping Claimants
pursue claims where they had been
injured through no fault of their own,
and often had lifelong disabilities as a
result. Very occasionally, I came across
someone where I doubted their story,
and felt they were stretching the truth
regarding their injuries, but in the vast
majority of cases, their lives had been
significantly and adversely affected,
sometimes with life changing results.
In a country where the only way those
people could make good their losses
was to make a claim against another
party’s insurers, and prove that the other
party was at fault, what choice did those
people have? The stark choice was
either for them to face a lengthy period of
poverty, pain and distress, or instead to
try and get an insurer to take an interest
in putting things right (in so far as money
can ever do so). None of us could afford
to ignore the possibility of claiming in
these circumstances.
Ah yes, I hear you say, that’s all very
well for the genuine cases which are
pursued, but what about all those that
are manufactured as a result of the
daytime TV ads, text messages offering
swift returns, and general increase in
numbers looking to claim.
Well, despite the rhetoric that is
incessantly trotted out by gullible media
briefed by some parts of the insurance
industry, claims are not actually on the
increase. The last major study on this,
conducted in 2006, concluded that there
had been no increase in personal injury
claims since 2000, based upon the
Government’s own figures, and they are
absolutely accurate, because all injury
claims have to be reported to the DWP.