As the personal injury sector prepares for life after the whiplash reforms, inCase examines the technologies and strategies being put in place ahead of 31 May
It has been confirmed that the long-awaited reforms to whiplash injury claims, which were first proposed back in 2015, will go into effect from 31 May 2021.
The reforms, which form part of the Civil Liability Act 2018, are designed to reduce the number and cost of minor, exaggerated and fraudulent road traffic accident claims; benefiting ordinary motorists by reducing insurance premiums.
These ‘whiplash reforms’, which only apply to road traffic accidents occurring on or after 31 May 2021, change the way low-value personal injury claims resulting from road traffic accidents are managed.
The reforms introduce fixed tariff damages for road traffic accident whiplash claims and increase the financial limit of claims managed through the road traffic accident small claims track from £1,000 to £5,000. As a result, potential damage awards and associated costs for claims managed through the RTA small claims track will be lower. This change is therefore expected to reduce some law firms’ potential fees from such cases.
This has meant that legal businesses who process lower value personal injury claims have needed to plan for post-implementation of these reforms.
In this article, we look at legal firms’ strategies to enable them to continue to add value to claimants who fall into the above category and the related online portal from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB), which has been set up to enable people injured in an accident on or after 31 May 2021 to claim through this service directly, without the need for legal assistance.
Whiplash claims portal
Firstly, a significant element of the whiplash reforms is the introduction of an online portal, set up by the MIB, which allows a person to lodge a claim for any road traffic accident-related personal injury claim under the value of £5,000.
The online portal, called Official Injury Claim, is intended to be an easy-to-use and impartial service for people who have suffered injuries in a road traffic accident to understand how to make a claim, provide the required information, manage their claim and receive settlement offers.
Despite minimal public promotion, the Official Injury Claim service is due to be launched on 31 May 2021. People injured in an accident on or after that date can then choose to claim through this service directly, without the need for legal assistance.
Post-reform strategies from across the sector
In a survey undertaken in December 2020 by First4Lawyers, only 18% of claimant personal injury solicitors said their firm had settled on a strategy to deal with t