Data released on 11^th April 2022, by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau has shown that the number of claims being made through the Official Injury Claim portal remains very low.

Since its launch the portal has received criticism from the insurance industry because of the apparent failure to reach its goal of allowing litigants in person to process their own whiplash injury claims online.

In fact, the latest data shows that there have been 19,031 unrepresented claims made through the portal since May 2021, compared to 190,411 represented claims, meaning that only 9% of claims have been unrepresented and 91% represented.

The Motor Accidents Solicitors Society said that, despite road traffic volumes being at near pre-Covid levels since last May, the OIC has registered only 209,442 claims.  This compares with the 650,000 claims registered in the last full year before the pandemic.

Sue Brown, chair of MASS said ‘Such a dramatic fall cannot be attributed to the impact of Covid-19 and general economic factors, but must be associated directly with issues around the OIC and the new claims process.’

Brown added: ‘The combination of low volumes of claims and the low numbers of unrepresented claimants strongly indicates that many accident victims are either unsure about how to make a claim, are reluctant to make a claim without representation or are unable to pursue a claim through the OIC. All of these conclusions carry concerns about the structure and fairness of the new claims process and need to be investigated thoroughly.’

The data strongly suggests that the majority of accident victims are either unsure about how to make a claim or are reluctant to make a claim without representation.

Andy Cullwick, head of marketing at First4Lawyers made the point that, “rather than eliminating fraudulent cases, could the fall in claims be down to the disastrous system which has proved so complicated to use that people instead choose not to bother? We simply don’t know.

The OIC have stressed: “settlement data will take some considerable time to mature, and a more settled picture is unlikely to emerge before the end of 2022”.

The OIC was meant to make it easy for injured people to settle their claim, but for whatever reason this is evidently not happening and already appears more complicated than first thought.

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Solicitors who continue to act for those claimants not wishing to pursue claims alone in the new RTA claims regime now face having to fund the cost of medical report fees whilst earning less in legal fees on successful cases to cover this cost. Disbursement write offs could eat heavily into a lower profit margin.

For this reason we have developed a cost effective ATE insurance solution for personal injury claims following a RTA occurring after 31 May 2021, which takes into account the new whiplash tariff awards and which continue to help support RTA claims being run on a CFA basis by covering the cost of all disbursements and any adverse costs in failed cases.

This is a single, easy to use policy covering all cases from small claims through to high value multi-track claims. Premiums are deferred and based on the final value of the claim.

For more information please contact us by emailing info@boxlegal.co.uk or calling 0870 766 9997