Nicholas Jervis, Solicitor (non-practising) and Managing Director of Whiplash Specialists Loyalty Law
The former Justice Secretary Jack Straw was on BBC Radio 4 this morning talking about the Government's charge to curb 'Whiplash Claims'. Not surprisingly as with the Government old or new, he focused on the problem being the legal fees in the whole process as opposed to the fact that the majority of whiplash claims are made because insurers put a lot of pressure on their insured to tell them to make a claim. This supports the longer aim to drive down legal fees (see my earlier blog about Government Plans To Curb Whiplash Claims).
He called the whiplash injury an 'entirely artificial injury' which is a disgraceful and dreadfully ill informed comment. Whiplash is a proven problem and can be incredibly debilitating. I have suffered a whiplash injury and know that it completely wiped me out for a week and left me with ongoing neck pain for some time afterwards. This was not in my head or a figment of my imagination. This was not an 'entirely artificial injury' as Jack Straw says. My wife suffered an injury in the same accident and she was more severely injured than I was and had months of suffering. Did she make that up too? A shocking statement Mr Straw!
Not surprisingly Nick Starling from the ABI was there again as the media seem to love to give him air time but seemingly refuse to allow anyone on any of their programmes who actually wants to stick up for the only person any of us should be talking about - the innocent victim who has done nothing wrong!
They went on to talk about the banning of referral fees which is planned but this will simply not solve the problem. This is exactly what the insurers want to happen and exactly why they have made as many people claim as possible over the last few years and also why they have pushed up their level of referral fees, often to as much as £1,000 per referred whiplash claim. This has then allowed them to argue that their is a 'compensation culture' because they have driven more people to make more claims. They have artificially inflated the market. Stop them doing this and you will see whiplash claims naturally drop to the same level they used to be before insurers pushed more people to claim!
What must be remembered here is that solicitors are paid a fixed fee for their work in helping a client to make a whiplash claim. The solicitor decides to make a payment from their fees to acquire new clients. This is called a referral fee but could be any form of a marketing fee. Every business spends money on marketing to attract new clients. The BBC spends money advertising all of its programmes. Insurers spend millions on comparison website advertisements and on their own advertisements. If the Government intends to stop every business of every type from promoting its' services then all well and good. But to decide that solicitors are the only business of any type in the whole country who cannot promote their services (whether by paying referral fees or advertising it does not matter) this smacks of discrimination.
It must also be remembered that insurers pushed heavily for fixed fees for solicitors for whiplash claims and achieved them. They then pushed more people to make more claims for whiplash and have achieved that. They are now pushing for the Government to push to ban referral fees AND to reduce the amount of fixed fees payable (in other words stop the solicitors from advertising this type of work and if they manage to find any clients with no advertising/referral fees to stop them from being paid a reasonable amount to do the work). They will no doubt achieve that too because the Government seem to be the insurers' whipping boys.
The point is, when the Government does what the insurers next want it to do and takes this action, it would be completely naiive to think that insurers will suddenly reduce their premiums which whiplash claims have allegedly increased. That will simply not happen. Instead they will advertise more and make more profits.
And in all of this, what about the most important person? What about the person who one day is driving along minding their own business and the next minute is driven into by another vehicle. That person then suffers a serious whiplash injury that stops them from working and stops them from caring for their young family. That person cannot find any solicitor to help her and in any event is too scared to do anything about it because she does not want to be seen to be 'one of those people who makes a claim'. So she does nothing. Her injury deteriorates (as whiplash can) and she is left with permanent pain and suffering. She cannot sleep every night due to the pain. She pays privately for treatment that she should have had immediately after the accident but it is too late now. She will be in agony for good!
Great work insurance companies. Great work media. Great work the Government for failing to look after your innocent citizens!
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