The President of APIL, John Spencer (pictured) has taken aim at leading UK insurance company, Aviva, accusing them of making unhelpful claims against personal injury claimants.
John Spencer was in a boisterous mood when addressing Aviva’s latest verbal ambush against injury claimants as they demanded for further whiplash reforms to be imposed to stem the tide of rising claims.
Describing Aviva’s claims as ‘outrageous’ and ‘utterly unhelpful’, Mr Spencer reminded the insurer of the money that the previous raft of reforms has enabled insurers to pass on to their consumers, which totals around £600 million.
He said: “Lawyers and insurers have been working together to combat fraudulent claims with cross-industry efforts having established a new system of accredited medical experts to ensure people with whiplash injuries are properly examined.”
“Data is now shared between insurers and lawyers to help identify fraudulent claims from the outset.”
“But what really must not be ignored is the fact that the number of whiplash-related motor claims has fallen nearly 30 per cent since 2010. Any increase in premiums cannot be due to these injury claims.”
Last week we wrote in our blog that instead of throwing accusations at personal injury claimants that perhaps it was time for the insurers and the Government realised that the terms of LASPO have not worked and the cuts to the profession that offers genuine injury victims representation in court were somewhat far fetched and unnecessary.
Supporting APIL’s viewpoint, Scott Rees and Co Marketing Partner, David Byrne, described Aviva’s latest outburst as an attempt to shift the spotlight off the failure of the reforms in order to protect the insurance sectors profit.
He said: “Since the LASPO was introduced plenty of money has been made available in the way of savings to give back to the consumer. The facts, however much the insurance industry like to bury them, do not lie.”
“The recent increase in whiplash claims is, of course a concern, but for the safety of our roads, not for fraudulent behaviour. Aviva are just simply leading the bandwagon of imminent propaganda for further reform.”
“What we have in truth is the release, once again, of half baked facts by an insurance company to serve their desires, rather than pain a full accurate picture of the whiplash claims landscape.”
“Claim numbers are down 30% since 2010 so there is certainly no need for further, crippling changes to the ways claims handling and it is clear for all to see that should premiums go on the rise again then there are other reasons for this happening. Those reasons being the enhancement of insurer profits.”
Following Aviva’s propaganda release, the Government’s buzz term, ‘Compensation Culture’ has re-emerged but there has been plenty of evidence to quash the theory that one exists.
Indeed, back in 2013, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson admitted that the Compensation Culture was a myth after there was a fall of 60% in the space of a decade on the number of claims being made for work-related injuries and diseases.
This was echoed by APIL last year in their paper titled ‘The Compensation Myth: Seven Myths about the ‘Compensation culture’ The big question is when will the Government finally realise it for themselves and will it be early enough to avoid insurance companies, such as Aviva, getting their own way once more with further unnecessary whiplash reforms.
Image source(s)
1. John Spencer Blog; http://john-spencer.blogspot.co.uk/