OK – so over the last few months I have been praising former Justice Secretary Mr Jack Straw for exposing the insurance industries “dirty secret” that they are responsible for the exponential increases in insurance premiums by selling claims on to lawyers for pure profit.
When the insurance companies have been telling you that the increase in premiums as a result of personal injury lawyers and claims has resulted in increases of up to 30%, it transpired that this was largely a symptom of your own insurance company encouraging potentially scrupulous claims by pushing you in to making one so they can cash in on up to £1,000 for referring your claim. Even if you’re genuine, they’ll make you claim using their referral fee solicitor; not because they are doing you a favour, but because they get paid to pass your personal details around.
We have spoken out against this on hundreds of occasions, as we never involve ourselves in referral fees, and have advised many victims of the referral fee system to change lawyers as soon as they can after they have been subject to poor service levels and potentially low payouts because their referral fee solicitor is too cash strapped to act for them in the right way thanks to wasting a huge portion of their budget on paying the fee.
Over the last few days, I was overjoyed to hear that a government bill is in the works to ban referral fees outright – stopping the injustice they can cause and allowing accident victims to no longer become the victims of a profiteering racket that adds absolutely no value to your claim, and has the potential to seriously reduce the quality of the legal services on offer.
However, there appears to be a cultural trend that has crossed over in to the campaign to rid the UK of the referral fee system; centred on whiplash claims.
Yes, whiplash claims can be difficult to prove; however, Mr Straw faces losing a lot of respect for the following quotation from a speech regarding the bill yesterday in the House of Commons:
“Often such claims are for whiplash, which is not so much an injury, more a profitable invention of the human imagination—undiagnosable except by third-rate doctors in the pay of the claims management companies or personal injury lawyers”
This – is what I will professionally term as a “seriously stupid statement”. The above is not true.
Whiplash is a common injury arising out of road accidents. Many people will visit their GP or a local walk in centre soon after their accident because they start to feel the effects of whiplash. There are a group of common symptoms that most people will suffer, which commonly appear hours or even a few days after an accident, and get progressively worse over a period of weeks or months.
The injury itself is caused because the sudden jolt of your head and neck area, caused by the force of the collision, that stretches the muscles beyond their normal range of movement; subsequently damaging them.
It’s not true that it is an “undiagnosable” injury at all – whilst the pain effects are difficult to see, you can feel it if you touch the back and neck of a person suffering from whiplash in many instances. I also know that Mr Straw’s statement is utterly ridiculous because I am currently (still!) suffering from my whiplash injury.
In all honesty, its offensive to hear that a politician – a supposed leading figure of our nation – is suggesting that something he knows absolutely nothing about is a “profitable invention of the human imagination”. I’m still having physio thanks to the area of my back that hasn’t healed. I’m a fairly fit young man who has never had any back problems in my life. Following my incident, it’s been nothing but pain in inconvenience all over my neck, back, and shoulders. I invite him to prod the right hand side of my back and feel how bad it is whilst he watches me wince in pain.
OK – so, unfortunately, there are likely people who may try and “milk” the system – and it is difficult to prove a person’s injury if they make a claim long after they have healed – but that doesn’t mean that whiplash doesn’t exist.
Whiplash is often a played down injury – I’ve heard many average Joe’s whom have never experienced it to believe its not even that bad. Well, if you ever get whiplash, you will certainly disagree with all the prejudice thoughts you have previously had.
Mr Straw – in some ways, I think it might be best for you to end up experiencing some whiplash sometime in your life. If you ever do, I’ll expect nothing less than an apology for making such a ridiculous remark.
So, where do we go from here? How can we rid the UK of wasteful referral fees and stop the potentially “milked” or non-existent whiplash claims without hampering the right for the innocent whiplash suffering victim to get compensation for what is genuinely an absolute pain and inconvenience to live with?
We shall have to see what the government have to say. Banning referral fees is the right move; claiming whiplash doesn’t exist is creating a new definition of stupidity.
Whiplash is not a “profitable invention of the human imagination” and is certainly not “undiagnosable”. My GP and a sports masseuse I have seen in the last few months have both agreed I have whiplash (the masseuse wasn’t even aware of my incident – she worked it out, and worked out where the pain was – and I don’t believe in psychics); they’re not on the payroll of claims companies or lawyers. My physio has also agreed, although the cost of her treatment will be claimed back for as part of my case, so I can’t fit her in to the above category – but that doesn’t mean all medical experts involved in claims are fraudulently lying.
The next stages of this bill will be interesting to see. But, whatever you views on whiplash claims and referral fees, considering that whiplash is not a real injury is absolutely insane…
Source of discussion http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110913/debtext/110913-0001.htm#11091385000002
