With April 2019 outlined as the government’s aim for bringing the Civil Liability Bill into force, little time remains to argue and lobby for changes
As the Civil Liability Bill makes its way through Parliament, the positions of its advocates and detractors remain polarised. One one side, whiplash and other personal injury claims are out of control and are forcing up car insurance premiums in particular. On the other, justice is being done for the insurers and not the victims who the policies are supposed to protect.
Adding fuel to the fire ahead of the bill’s second reading in the House of Lords on 24 April, the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) reported that motor insurance claims are at their lowest for a decade—contradicting the government’s ‘compensation culture’ rationale for introducing whiplash reform and changes to the personal injury discount rate.
Commenting on the CRU’s figures at the time of their release, Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) president Brett Dixon made clear his belief that they discredited the principles behind the Civil Liability Bill, of clamping down on “too high for too long” whiplash claims that are “symptomatic of a wider compensation culture”, as justice secretary David Gauke put it in March.
But those figures didn’t change the minds of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) or its members. At the beginning of this month, the ABI’s latest Motor Insurance Premium Tracker put the cost of the average motor insurance policy at £478 in Q1 2018, or £13 down from Q4 2017. However, the ABI also compared the latest average with what was recorded in Q1 2017—and the average policy was £14 cheaper back then.
Rob Cummings, assistant director and head of motor and liability at the ABI, commented: “While this small fall in the last few months gives some relief to motorists, it is in line with seasonal trends and the underlying cost pressures from things like personal injury claims remain.”
“It can’t be right that for every £1 in compensation paid to whiplash claimants, an additional 47p goes to their lawyers. The Civil Liability Bill now going through Parliament will fix a broken system and help millions of motorists whose premiums had been going up and up over the last two years.”
The sitting lords largely parked this divide in favour of a wide-ranging debate on the Civil Liability Bill last month. But there was an acknowledgement of the argument that is raging, with Lord Beecham