Personal injury is often in the press; whiplash even more so. Sadly, the majority of what people hear about is nothing but bad news and the insurers’ side of the story. We have covered probably most current affairs issues surrounding whiplash and personal injury, and we will continue to defend the innocent victims of whiplash who genuinely suffer pain and incur loss until our dying breaths!
Once again whiplash is in the news as the government are announcing plans to cut car whiplash claims. It’s all very well making a good effort to cut out the fraudulent claims – we agree with that – but stating the plans to “cut car whiplash claims” is a careless statement.
According to sources from the BBC, the government aims to cut “trivial” claims in order for the insurance sector to save money with the promise to pass it on to consumers. The whole idea has come from the Transport Select Committee who have alleged there needs to be more evidence for claimants to prove they have whiplash and to prove the impact it has caused on their life. The measures aim to reduce the alleged “compensation culture” and high degree of “trivial” claims.
We have already determined that there is no compensation culture – that was concluded in the governments own reports. Why the media continue to use such a term does not help the situation…
So, What’s the Problem?
Well we have already gone over the fact that insurers are to blame for the increased premiums as one of the top sellers of peoples details to solicitors following accidents. The referral fee system that the government already has plans in place to ban is a huge contributory factor to this. A person has an accident, may not be suffering, or hardly suffering at all, when their own insurers tell them they can make a claim through their appointed solicitors. People get drawn in to it, and before you know it, they’re making claims.
In fact, there are those who have claimed to have been pushed in to it by their insurers; pushed in to making a whiplash claim so their own insurers can sell their information to the first solicitor willing to pay the most for it…
My insurers tried to sell me Legal Expenses Insurance five times before I had to tell them I work for a personal injury law firm, and it’s my job to stop it. The response I got was “oh… never mind then.”
When people genuinely suffer and look for answers, they find companies like us who take on their genuine claim and get them the compensation they deserve! We don’t pay referral fees to anyone, and all of our clients come directly to us.
Whiplash IS Medically Diagnosable
Once again the ABI – Association of British insurers -have been quoted to say that whiplash as an injury cannot be diagnosed. I quote:
“There’s no medical diagnosis for whiplash as an injury, it’s self-reported,” Association of British Insurers Director General Nick Starling told the BBC.
This is of course completely inaccurate; a ridiculous statement. If whiplash cannot be diagnosed, then we have a bigger problem than cutting whiplash claims – we have thousands of medical experts who have fraudulently and falsely testified that there are thousands of people in the UK suffering from whiplash.
All our clients get proper medical reports with expert consultants who will either diagnose whiplash caused by the accident, or advise to the contrary. If it’s confirmed by the expert, the medical evidence is there. For my claim, which I suffered for months for, I was seen by an Orthopaedic Consultant whom has been practising for decades. I’d like to think he can make a qualified and expert opinion; in fact, he noted he could feel the muscle damage in the right side of my back, which was where the pain has been far worse!
Two Sides to Every Story
On the flip side of the insurers moaning about having to pay out for claims – which is the point of insurance in the first place; to insure people – are the solicitors and the genuine claimants of whiplash. The government so far appears to have failed to fully engage with the Law Society on the matter. It would seem they are content sticking with just the insurers’ side of things; which makes sense in a credit crunch when you can give people hope of lower car insurance costs.
The source advises that Law Society Chief Executive Desmond Hudson said: “We wrote to the prime minister over a month ago, but it is disappointing that our offer to work with him and his government in addressing public concerns over whiplash claims has been ignored.
Government should not be limiting itself to tea and cakes with one partisan set of stakeholders – the insurers.”
What’s Going to Happen next?
That’s the big question. We have the insurers saying they want to cut whiplash claims because they are sick of paying out for them, the government backing the notion as insurers have promised to pass the savings on to consumers – which leaves the public happy – but no word from the genuine whiplash sufferers and the solicitors that represent them.
Yes – there are fraudulent claimants
No – we can’t stop them personally as lawyers
But making it harder to claim for whiplash risks the innocent genuine whiplash sufferers whose suffering is alleged to be falsified losing out on the compensation they deserve. It is possible to get whiplash from a minor impact. If they put a rule on saying the collision has to be at more than 5mph to claim for whiplash, you will end up with genuine sufferers who can get whiplash from small impacts losing out on the right to claim. How is that really fair?
If all those involved actually got a dose of whiplash, you can guarantee their opinions would change when they realise the true affect it has on a persons life. Or at least I’d like to think they would…
The resolution here shouldn’t be how we are going to cut whiplash claims – but how we are going to cut fraudulent whiplash claims.
Will the government wake up and smell the coffee? Probably not; in times of financial meltdown, any promise by the powers that be to make a portion of a common living cost (insurance) to fall is always something that could win some support of the voters…