Industry news roundup: week ended 25 Aug 2014:
The number of ‘ambulance chasing’ claims management companies is at an all-time low, yet there are still plenty of spurious claims being made in the UK.
Do you remember the furore over claims management companies a year or so ago? These rogue firms were blamed for drumming up all sorts of spurious personal injury claims by sending unsolicited texts and phone calls to anyone and everyone they could think of that might be interested in bringing an accident claim. The practice was severely curtailed in April of last year thanks to some well-placed regulatory changes, and for the most part these changes have worked – there are 600 fewer CMCs in operation today than there were in 2013.
This should be a victory for anyone concerned with spurious personal injury compensation claims, right? Well guess what – there’s still plenty of that going around, even though there’s hardly any CMCs left. So much for the idea that there’s all these ambulance chasers drumming up business for personal injury lawyers.
So where are all the new compensation claims coming from? Well over the last 12 months there was almost £600,000 in compensation paid out by West Midlands Police for instance, and all for seemingly spurious reasons such as falling off faulty chairs, slipping on a wet floor or having difficulties entering and exiting a police vehicle. Oh, and a dog bite as well, mustn’t forget that.
Now I’m not going to say that we shouldn’t take care of officers of the law that injure themselves in the line of duty – but for pity’s sake, it’s not like these individuals were hurt in the course of their duties of serving and protecting the people of the West Midlands. Let’s not forget that this is all taxpayer cash being expended to take care of all these clumsy crybabies that can’t walk down a bloody corridor without falling flat on their faces and bruising their bums. What kind of incompetent flatfoots do we have keeping us all safe? How can they end up keeping the peace if they can’t even keep upright in a wet corridor?