New Claims Proposals for Personal Injury Claims

 

New Government Proposals on claims regulation for early January 2008 will affect brokers, solicitors, insurers, adjusters and insured businesses.

 

Consultation period ends July 13th

If you are a broker, insurer or claims management house, then you must take an interest in the progress of the Government proposals to radically change injury claims handling practice in England and Wales. The paper, Case track limits and the claims process for personal injury claims, lays out key reforms for fast tracking non-contentious claims.

 

 

How does this affect me?

The proposals aim to reduce the claims settlement period and cap costs, benefiting the claimant and insurer. The quicker the response from all parties involved, the lower the costs. For example, there will be time limits on solicitors to make a new claim once instructed. No ATE can be incepted at this stage. And there will be a 30 working day limit to respond (15 for motor).

 

 

Brokers and Claims Managers

Insurers will look to people in the business supply chain who can prove they can meet the new timescales and thereby keep costs low, avoiding ATE insurance and higher solicitors’ success fees. It is brokers who can prove quick delivery of claims data, who will be favoured, as this will feature as an underwriting factor affecting premium rates. It will be claims managers who can easily gather and share information between different parties who will be the winners in the new regime.

 

 

Rapid reporting

Claimants who can capture complete information on incidents as they occur and make that information immediately accessible to all parties for pre-claim evaluation and triage will be at an advantage. They will fall into the fixed lower settlement agreement. Brokers, insurers and claims companies need to provide them with the right data capture software to meet the new deadlines.

 

 

Implementation Date

The proposals are expected to be implemented in early 2008, so now is the time to consider how to bring your procedures up-to-date. Go to the DCA website for more information http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/cp0807.htm.

What next? Talk to Whitespace about improving your claims management, either through SCHEMATIC for schemes brokers or through ClaimSuite, our global claims management solution.

 

 

Give me a call if you wish to find out more on 020 7257 6309

or email my colleague, Jonathan Ling