New consultation to run until 6 January 2017.
Insurers have moved swiftly to back the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) launch of a consultation on proposals designed to reduce the number of whiplash claims.
According to the MoJ, the current number of whiplash claims is “unacceptably high” fuelled by a “predatory” claims industry and exaggerated and fraudulent claims.
It highlighted that insurers have committed to passing on savings putting it at an average of £40 for drivers.
Welcome news
Rob Townend, claims director at Aviva, commented: “This is welcome news for consumers who are rightly fed up with nuisance calls, fraud such as crash for cash and the huge number of spurious whiplash claims they pay for in their premium.
“These proposals bring us a step closer to saying good riddance to the ‘whip-cash’ merry-go-round that is the bedrock of the UK’s compensation culture.”
The CEO of Axa UK, Amanda Blanc, said the insurer “wholeheartedly” welcomed the consultation.
She added: “It is vital that people have access to justice to secure support and compensation for genuine injuries but there must be a crackdown on those who abuse the system.”
Committing the provider to passing on 100% of savings to customers she concluded that the proposals were “obviously good news for policyholders but also the wider population as slowly but surely the country pushes back against the compensation culture that looked to have taken a hold in our society”.
All savings
Similarly, Martin Milliner, general insurance claims director at LV said that the firm would pass on all savings generated by the crackdown on compensation.
He added that LV welcomed the consultation and would work with the government on implementing the reforms.
“Honest motorists and businesses should not have to keep paying the price for unnecessary whiplash claims,” he urged.
“The UK is known as the ‘whiplash capital of the world’ so it’s vital that government implements these proposals without delay to ensure consumers can start getting a fairer deal as soon as possible.”
Measures
At RSA, Bill Paton, UK and Western Europe claims director stated the company was pleased the government had decided to push ahead with the measures.
“We believe these reforms will ultimately result in the reduction in premiums for the ordinary motorist and look forward to working closely with government and the wider industry to bring an end to false whiplash claims,” he said.
The consultation was described as “great news for the motorist” by Tony Newman head of motor claims at Allianz.
“Our customers tell us they are tired of an industry that has evolved around these minor invisible injuries and will see this positively,” he said.
“Whatever the final outcome of the consultation is, it has to be sufficiently robust to achieve the stated objective long-term.”
Signal
Meanwhile a spokesperson for Direct Line said the business had been calling for legislation to reduce the number of “spurious injury claims” and was pleased with the consultation paper.
“This sends a strong signal about Ministers’ willingness to clamp down on what has clearly become a broken compensation culture in this country,” they said.
Meanwhile these insurance companies are all paying their chief execs many millions of pounds, see my other blogs!
The article above is care of Insuranceage and can be found here
http://www.insuranceage.co.uk/insurance-age/news/2477579/insurers-line-up-to-back-government-s-whiplash-proposals?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=IA.Breakfast_Briefing.DU.A.M-F0830&utm_source=IA.DCM.Scheduled_Updates
