Changing ‘no win no fee‘ legislation will not solve the nation’s personal injury claims problems, according to an association of legal experts.
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has said that the new legal aid bill being pushed through Parliament could lead to nothing more than handing the insurance industry a licence to print money while leaving injured Brits out in the cold. In addition to the concerns raised by the APIL, the chair of the Motor Accident Solicitors Society, Donna Sully, has also weighed in on the issue, remarking that the Government has entirely missed the mark in regards to the scope of the new regulations.
The new law is hitting all the wrong targets, Ms Sully added, as all genuine claimants, such as those injured in a public place or at work, or those who sustain serious injuries. Both MASS and APIL have therefore called for the Bill to scrap its personal injury clauses, instead offering several alternative suggestions.
First and foremost, both organisations say that a blanket ban on passing on the private details of injured people needs to be instituted in order to eliminate referral fees. Furthermore, they recommended extending the strict cold calling ban to claims management companies and insurers, as it currently only applies to solicitors.
In order to prevent distasteful, exploitative, and misleading advertising campaigns, the two groups have called for more stringent personal injury advertising regulations. Other suggestions included imposing a strict duty on insurance providers to report their fraud suspicions to the lawyers of claimants as soon as these suspicions arise, as the surest way to get a handle on fraud is to share information in possession by insurance providers.