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Nicholas Jervis, Solicitor (non-practising) and Managing Director of Whiplash Specialists Loyalty Law

There will be much talk today about the Government's plans to make it much harder for people to make a claim for whiplash and this frustrates me no end. This is because the only people who will be made to suffer as a result of these changes are genuine, innocent accident victims who through no fault of their own have suffered a whiplash injury. That is not right and not fair and the Government needs to ensure that they protect these victims. Our whole legal system is built on the foundation that someone who suffers an injury through no fault of their own should be put back in the position they were in before the accident. This is achieved through treatment and compensation. If people feel that their integrity will be called into question if they make a claim for whiplash, many will simply not make a claim. If they have a serious whiplash injury, as many people do, they may miss the vital treatment that could prevent them from suffering permanent pain!

What you need to understand is that the sole reason that whiplash claims have risen in volume over the last few years is due to the insurers encouraging, and in fact putting pressure, on their insured to make a claim for compensation. They have played a long and clever game to increase the number of people claiming so that ultimately they can force the Government to drive down the amount of compensation and costs that they have to pay for each successful claim. It looks like they have won their long game!

Insurers control around 70% of all whiplash claims made because they are the first people to be notified as soon as their insured are involved in an accident. In fact they tell you in their policy that YOU MUST notify them as soon as you are involved in an accident. They sell you a Legal Expenses Insurance Policy for around £30-50 which again tells you that you must call them as soon as you have an accident. I know from first hand experience of a recent accident that my wife was involved in that they then encourage their insured and anyone else involved in an accident to make a claim. My wife was sitting in her car in a car park when another vehicle drove into her. The other driver's insurance company asked her on 4 separate occasions whether she was injured and wanted to make a claim, whether anyone else was in the car and if they were injured, and if anyone was in the car with their insured who might have been injured! Insurers are solely responsible for driving up the volume of people making a claim.

The clear and easy solution for this problem is not to punish the innocent victim. The solution is to ban insurance companies from profiting from the immoral practice of allowing them to sell on their client's details, and also then putting pressure on their insured to use the solicitor who they choose to help them (the one who pays the highest fee but does not necessarily provide the best service). People who have paid for the legal expenses insurance believe that they have bought a policy of value but nothing is further from the truth. This is because the insurer only sells the policy to ensure that their insured returns to them when they are involved in an accident, so that they can then sell on the insured's details to the highest paying solicitor!

If the Ministry of Justice then do their job and enforce the ban on claims companies who send spam texts and emails ('you could be entitled to £3,750) and the number of claims will fall dramatically. More importantly, the innocent victim will be free to choose whether or not to make a claim and who they would like to help them!

The biggest problem with this is that whiplash can be a serious and debilitating injury and the constant negative publicity surrounding whiplash claims will prevent some people who have been injured through no fault of their own from making a claim and receiving the treatment they need to get their life back to normal (or as normal as it can be if they suffer a serious and permanent whiplash injury which many people do).

I speak from first hand experience as I have suffered a whiplash injury, I have been a solicitor dealing with whiplash claims and now I run a services that matches innocent accident victims with specialist solicitors.

PLEASE WILL SOMEONE LOOK OUT FOR THE POSITION OF THE INNOCENT VICTIM WHO SUFFERS WHIPLASH. THESE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT. NOT SOLICITORS, NOT THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH INSURERS AND NOT SOLICITORS. IT IS SOLELY ABOUT THE INNOCENT VICTIM!

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