An overwhelming majority of Brits are completely fed up with the personal injury compensation sector, with a massive 93 per cent supporting any government clampdown on accident claims involving whiplash, a new survey recently discovered.
Two out of every three drivers surveyed by the research study said that the government’s new proposed plans to subject whiplash claims to closer medical scrutiny because the UK’s ‘compensation culture’ has gotten completely out of hand. Meanwhile, an additional 27 per cent remarked that the new proposals, which would see alleged victims of whiplash assessed by independent doctor panels, were needed in order to stop car insurance costs from going up any more than they already have.
People are simply fed up with having to fit the legal bill for the insurance industry as a result of the surge of whiplash claims, experts say, as current estimates exist that claim whiplash-related legal matters cost insurers £2 billion in compensation payments in 2011 alone, and that this £2 billion is recovered from honest, harried motorists by raising the average premium price by around £90. Insurance specialists have welcomed the new proposals as well, adding that it’s another important step in managing motoring costs for UK drivers.
Industry experts said they were encouraged to see the government continuing to take action, much as they did last year in banning personal injury lawyers from taking referral fees, which were found to be one of the biggest reasons the number of car accident claim figures were rising at such an unmanageable pace. Things had gotten so bad that, even though the number of car accidents have gone down by around 23 per cent over the last six years, the number of claims being made had actually increased by a factor of 70 per cent – something industry insiders blamed on lawyers and claims management companies flogging lists of personal details purchased from insurers to look for drivers interested in making a claim.