ATE Blog
After The Event Insurance Industry Post Jackson
12th January, 2012
Happy New Year to you all.
Having fun? Lots of stories about Jackson et al floating around. Today we have the Transport Committee's findings and recommendations. Surprise surprise, they say whiplash claims are bad -boooo - and should be curtailed. Also insurers shouldn't be allowed to sell claims - hooray. Interestingly, they want to somehow stop whiplash claims by having a definition or hurdle to jump before an injury justifies compensation. They should have listened to the medical experts on that one who have been arguing for years about how whiplash should be defined. We are still watching that space.
The Legal Aid Bill is still working its way through the House of Lords and is expected to come through unscathed although I do draw some comfort with the latest defeat of the Social Welfare reform bill. Who knows, the Legal Aid bill may be stopped at the last minute - who knows.
Some After the Event insurers are banking on this. We know of several companies who are just going to stop providing policies in the post-jackson era. The reason? Well, they are too heavy on admin i.e. staffing etc which means their policies will be too high. Also, some companies simply don't have the stomach for it any more - it is a small part of their business and soon to get even smaller.
What about us? Well we are expanding. We are taking on two new people plus a consultant. We think Jackson is an amazing opportunity. At the moment, there are all sorts of 'strange' arrangements out there between ATE Insurers and solicitors, some of which are not actually very legal - all with a view to getting as much money out of the defendants as possible. Post Jackson, with the client paying, all this will go. The After the Event Insurance providers who are left will have to compete on the quality of their product and their service. The feedback we get from our panel (yes we go and talk to them) is that we do very well on this.
So bring it on.
Having fun? Lots of stories about Jackson et al floating around. Today we have the Transport Committee's findings and recommendations. Surprise surprise, they say whiplash claims are bad -boooo - and should be curtailed. Also insurers shouldn't be allowed to sell claims - hooray. Interestingly, they want to somehow stop whiplash claims by having a definition or hurdle to jump before an injury justifies compensation. They should have listened to the medical experts on that one who have been arguing for years about how whiplash should be defined. We are still watching that space.
The Legal Aid Bill is still working its way through the House of Lords and is expected to come through unscathed although I do draw some comfort with the latest defeat of the Social Welfare reform bill. Who knows, the Legal Aid bill may be stopped at the last minute - who knows.
Some After the Event insurers are banking on this. We know of several companies who are just going to stop providing policies in the post-jackson era. The reason? Well, they are too heavy on admin i.e. staffing etc which means their policies will be too high. Also, some companies simply don't have the stomach for it any more - it is a small part of their business and soon to get even smaller.
What about us? Well we are expanding. We are taking on two new people plus a consultant. We think Jackson is an amazing opportunity. At the moment, there are all sorts of 'strange' arrangements out there between ATE Insurers and solicitors, some of which are not actually very legal - all with a view to getting as much money out of the defendants as possible. Post Jackson, with the client paying, all this will go. The After the Event Insurance providers who are left will have to compete on the quality of their product and their service. The feedback we get from our panel (yes we go and talk to them) is that we do very well on this.
So bring it on.
