Insurance Industry: Whiplash

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My noble friend is quite right to draw the House’s attention to the very major problem of the significant increase in the number of claims and our large number of claims in comparison with other European countries. One of the reasons that insurers give for settling these claims is that it costs them too much to fight the case. Of course, if our plans to raise the small claims limit to £5,000 come into effect, this will no longer continue to be a valid reason for not contesting claims. Anyone who is notified of what sounds suspiciously like a fraud should not do anything to encourage it. If individuals are invited to take part in such an endeavour, they are potentially committing a criminal offence.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the court costs. Have the coalition’s policies of banning referral fees produced any results? Has the number of frauds gone down? Are there any statistics on that as yet, following the Insurance Act 2015?

[Lord Faulks]

The Government are attacking this problem on a number of different fronts. Referral fees is one; the LASPO reforms is another; and there is the MedCo portal, which means that all whiplash injuries must go via a neutral evaluation with limited costs. All are contributing to a decrease in the number of whiplash claims, but there are still too many, and we still feel that there is fraud at the root of all this.