The Justice Minister, Helen Grant, has revealed that the Ministry of Justice expect to receive the Transport Select Committee’s report on whiplash from car accidents before parliament goes for summer recess.
With the report opening up debate on whether or not the UK really does have a problem in regards to number or whiplash claims that are made each year, the government has said that it would wait on the outcome of the report before publishing a response to the whiplash consultation proposing to increase the small claims limit from £1,000 to £5,000 and introducing medical panels.
There has been plenty of heated debate through out the Transport Select Committee inquiry, with the personal injury industry arguing that such an increase would effectively price genuine whiplash injury victims out of making the claim and therefore remove their access to justice.
Recent government figures revealed that, despite figures being released from the insurance sector suggesting otherwise, that the amount of whiplash claims being made over the last year had in fact fallen by 11%, which is the lowest since 2008/09.
These figures were recorded before the Jackson reforms that were implemented on the 1st of April and would suggest that the UK has less of a problem to worry about than the insurance industry had convinced the government to think it has.
The personal injury sector has always accepted that fraud was a problem within the industry and has been as committed as the insurers towards tackling it. But to do this at the expense of those who are genuinely injured as the result of an accident which they were unable to avoid is not the right way forward and the only real winner is the insurers who can make giant savings through not having to pay out to deserving claimants.
Image source(s)
1. Ministry of Justice; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Justice_(United_Kingdom)