Flash for Cash – fraudulent injury claim

The insurance industry has seen their fair share of fraudulent claims.  There is apparently a new scam on the increase as highlighted on the BBC News recently. It’s called flash-for-cash and usually involves the criminal deliberately flashing another driver beckoning them to either pull out from a side road on to the main road or turn right across their path.  The other driver relying on the “flash” emerges only to find that the criminal does not stop but instead drives into them. It usually involves one persons word against the other – and the innocent victim’s insurer invariably is always left to pick up the tag. The recession and the advertising hype via the media advertising claims and actively encouraging people to make claims has led to the rise and increase in fraudulent claims.  We have all seen the documentaries in the past. The famous one is the phantom passenger :  You have an accident with another driver.  You are probably aware of one front seat passenger – yet a claim is then made by at least four people – the driver suddenly acquiring two other back seat passengers who were allegedly there at the time. Or there is the famous case of the bus that was involved in an accident.  The ticket machine reveals that there were 20 or so paying passengers – yet about 30 – 40 claims are made.  (CCTV later showed several bystanders hopping on to the bus after – pretending that they were there on the bus at the time of crash. The list goes on.  This latest scam is however very concerning.  We commute through congested traffic and rely on the good nature of other drivers to “let us out”.  Now this seriously questions whether we can rely on good natured gestures such as flashing.

This page © Copyright 2013, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

Uninsured Drivers – bringing an injury claim against uninsured drivers

They say at least one in ten of us will be involved in an accident with an uninsured driver. With insurance premiums on the rise and ongoing recession showing no signs of ending this figure is only going to increase.

So, you’ve been involved in a road traffic accident. The driver behind has driven into the back of you. You get out, exchange details and go on your way. You report the accident to your insurers and they make arrangements to immediately repair your vehicle and provide you with a courtesy vehicle at the same time.

In the meantime, your neck and back stiffens and you realise you have suffered a whiplash injury. You make enquiries about bringing a personal injury claim against the other driver’s insurers. You instruct Solicitors to act for you. It is at this stage probably, that your Solicitors deliver the bad news: “You’ve been involved in an accident with an uninsured driver”.

What does this mean ?

It means that the person who hit you did not have motor insurance. Your claim will therefore be dealt with not by an insurance company but by the Motor Insurers Bureau. (MIB)

Initially you breathe a sigh of relief in the knowledge that your claim WILL be dealt with – just not by an insurance company.

However there are drawbacks. The MIB do not just pay claims “willy nilly”. They will certainly make sure you have jumped through all the legal hoops you possibly can. In particular, they will insist on you reporting the matter to the Police. If you did not report the matter to the Police (believing everything to be in order at the time !) they may refuse to deal with the claim.

If the MIB feel that you know (or ought to have known) that the driver was not insured – they will refuse to pay out on your claim. For example: John drives to Bills house to pick him up to go out for the night. Bill says: “Nice Car John – when did you get it ?” John says: “It’s not my car – it’s by cousin’s. He is staying with us at the moment and I asked if I could borrow it”. If later on that evening John crashes the car injuring both himself and Bill the MIB will argue that Bill should have known from that conversation that John was not insured (or unlikely to have been ) to drive the car . They will not pay out on the claim.

If the accident does not occur in a “public place” then again, the MIB will not pay out. So taking the scenario above – if John crashes the car on Bill’s drive way and not on a public road – the MIB do not have to pay out.

If and when the MIB do pay out on your claim, they have a £300 excess on property damage. So, if your Policy Excess (with your own insurance) is £250 – you can’t recover any of that because it falls within the £300. If your excess was £500 – then you can claw back £200 from the MIB.

Another disadvantage is the loss of any no claims bonus and your own insurance premiums going up. Normally, if you are involved in an accident with an insured motorist and the accident is not your fault, you can claim any personal injury and other losses from the other driver’s insurers. You will have your car repaired with your own insurer and maybe a courtesy vehicle provided by them. Your own insurer will then recover their costs of hire and repair from the other insurers as well. Because they have made a full recovery – your no claims bonus is protected and your premiums do not increase.

If you bring a claim against the MIB however your own insurers can not claim their losses against the MIB. Under these circumstances they have not made a full recovery and you do lose your no claims bonus ! (I am aware from the Direct Line advert that they are probably the exception).

Finally, MIB claims take absolutely ages to be processed. There is just one office in Milton Keynes dealing with all the thousands of uninsured and untraced drivers claims. Fast turn around of claims is hardly top of the agenda.

The answer: Why can we not have insurance discs on vehicles. In the same way we have tax discs which make it clear whether you have tax, you can have an insurance disc which shows whether you have valid insurance. This would undoubtedly reduce the number of uninsured drivers out there !

This page © Copyright 2013, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

Defective Premises – injury claim and liability

With the current economic climate fewer and fewer people are buying their homes. With Banks being reluctant to lend and inflation on the increase, the trend to rent is rising.

If you renting property and you are injured as a result of a defect in that property you can bring a claim for compensation for personal injury under the Defective Premises Act 1972.  This is the Act that covers landlords and builders in respect of poorly constructed and poorly maintained premises.

In reality however, how easy is it to bring a claim ?

Consider the case of Alker v Collingwood Housing Association 2007.  A tenant put her hand against the glass panel of a door to push the door open.  As safety glass had not been fitted her hand went through the glass and she was badly cut. The Courts found that the glass was not “safety glass” but complied with building standards.  The landlord’s duty extended to repairing and maintaining the property – but not necessarily making it safe.  As the glass had not been in a state of disrepair and had not been broken prior to the accident there was no liability on their part.  The absence of a safety feature therefore did not constitute liability.

Consider also the case of Adams v Rhymny Valley DC.  Window locks were fitted in a property.  There was a fire and the family in occupation burned to death as they were unable to open the window and escape. Again, there was no liability on the part of the landlord.  The absence of better features did not constitute “disrepair” even though they were hazardous.  Lack of improvements are in itself insufficient – you have to prove actual deterioration and disrepair.

It follows that you stand more chance of bringing a claim for personal injury if you are injured in a public building than in your own home. A landlord has less of a duty of care to his tenant than a shopkeeper has to a total stranger visiting his premises.  Under the Occupiers Liability Act the shopkeeper has a much larger duty of care:  The “Occupier” must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the visitor will be safe in using the property.  There is no such duty of care owed by a landlord to his tenant.

This page © Copyright 2012, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

How much money will I get for my injury claim ?

How much compensation you are entitled to depends on a number of  factors:-

a)      What type of injury:  So a broken foot, will attract a higher level of compensation than soft tissue injury or bruising.

b)      How long the symptoms last for:  So, a whiplash injury which is expected to last 6 months will attract a lower level of compensation than a whiplash injury which is expected to last 12 months

c)      How the injury impacts upon your day to day life:  An office typist would arguably achieve a higher award for a broken wrist than say a receptionist in the same firm who uses a hands free telephone system.

Some rough examples are as follows:

Whiplash injury to the neck where a

Full recovery takes place within 1 – 2 Years      £3,100  to  £5,600

Fractured clavicle                                               £3,650  to   £8,700

Fractures of the forearm                                    £4,750   to £13,700

Wrist Injuries:-

An uncomplicated Colles’ fracture.                     In the region of £5,300

Very minor undisplaced or minimally displaced fractures and soft tissue injuries necessitating application of plaster or bandage for a matter of weeks and a full or virtual recovery within up to 12 months or so.

This page © Copyright 2012, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

Ban on Referral Fees

Many people know that come April 2013 there will be a ban on referral fees.

At the moment there a hundreds of Claims Management Companies (CMC’s). They advertise morning noon and night “Make a claim, make a claim, make a claim !!!” The media hype has increased public awareness of the claims process and created the “compensation culture” we now live in. I believe it was David Cameron – our own Prime Minister who called the UK “the whiplash centre of Europe”.

With the increase in claims, insurance premiums have risen and risen. Each year the number of claims being made for personal injury and other losses are on an upward spiral.

In response the Government has stepped in and will now as of April 2013 ban referral fees. This means that CMC’s can take on through the media as many claims as they like – they can advertise and flog the claims process to their heart’s content – but they can not sell the claims. At the moment, all the claims they “capture” are sold to firms of Solicitors. If you, as a Solicitor want to cash in on the work – you have to be the highest bidder !

It doesn’t stop there. Once the Solicitor gets the claim there are other “spin-offs”. A legal expense insurance policy has to be taken out to protect the Claimant from any adverse costs order. Guess what – legal expense insurance company’s are paying referral fees if you take out one of their policys. A medical report needs to be prepared to base the claim upon. Again, medical agencies employed in this field will pay a referral fee if you refer the claim to them.

The “cost” of bringing a claim therefore goes up and up as the referral fees get bigger and bigger in order to entice the Claimant. The ban on referral fees must therefore be a good thing from this point of view.

But how will this change things for the Claimant ?

More recently CMC’s have been able to set up what is known as an alternate business structure (ABS) with Solicitors. So, instead of “referring” the claims to Solicitors for a fee they have set up in effect their “in house” firm of solicitors and simply share the profits between them.

In April with the complete ban in place there will undoubtedly be more and more of these ABS structures. The worry is that these “structures” are going to be put in place at the last minute. They will be poorly structured, poorly run, and based on a shoe-string budget. The CMC’s are not lawyers. They may be excellent at marketing themselves and bringing the claims in, but are they lawyers ? No. Can they ensure that the people doing the work they capture are properly qualified, experienced and can deliver the same professional service that the successful lawyers who albeit are currently paying “top dollar” for the referral of the business are currently providing ? I doubt it.

I think that on the whole Claimants in the ‘New World’ will receive a less favourable service through a CMC. I think more and more Claimants will revert to their High Street practice and we may well see the end of the CMC.

This page © Copyright 2012, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

Low Velocity Collisions

If you have recently been involved in a road traffic accident you may have been told that the other party insurers will not pay out on any personal injury claim you may wish to make because there is little or no damage to the vehicles.

Why ?

Insurers say that the UK is “the whiplash centre of Europe” .  “Crash for Cash !” they say .  Compensation Culture gone wild.  The result is that if there is little or no damage to their insured’s vehicle they immediately question whether the occupant of either vehicles involved could have suffered a whiplash injury.  They will immediately inspect your vehicle and if the cost of repairs to either your vehicle and/ or their vehicle is under £500 they will refuse to pay out the claim.

To suffer a whiplash injury in a car accident your head would have to be flung forward and back.  It is this movement that gives the injury it’s name: “whiplash”.  The symptoms that follow on from this type of injury are usually neck pain and stiffness, headaches and sometimes symptoms radiating into the shoulder and upper back.

Where vehicles are travelling very slowly  (such as in stop start traffic) whilst you have been hit in the rear by the car behind you are unlikely to suffer a whiplash.  This is usually because the speed on impact is insufficient to move you sharply forward and back in this manner.  This speed is often referred to by motor engineers as the Delta V –  If one vehicle is moving at speed and strikes another vehicle the energy is transferred from the first vehicle to the second vehicle.  It is that energy that will cause the occupant to be flung forwards in the vehicle.  The vehicle has to be travelling at more than 5mph in order to transfer sufficient energy in order to move the victim.

In short therefore insurers say that where the vehicle was travelling at less than 5mph it is impossible to suffer a whiplash injury, as you simply could not have been moved in that manner.

There is understandably always a dispute as to the speed of the vehicles.  If you have ever had a vehicle drive into the rear of your car you will know what I mean when I say it always sounds worse than it is.  The noise is loud !  Most victims therefore always say “Oh he must have been going faster than 5mph – there was a really big bang”.

If there is a dispute as to the speed of the vehicles the insurers then look at the damage to the vehicles.  Again, where a vehicle is travelling at less than 5mph it is unlikely to do a great deal of damage to the other vehicle.  The “magic” figure is £500.  Generally where the damage is less than £500 the insurers will not pay out on a whiplash claim as they say it is indicative of a low velocity collision.

So if you are involved in an accident and there is less than £500 worth of damage to your vehicle the other party insurers are unlikely to pay out on your whiplash claim.

This page © Copyright 2012, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.

Accident at Work Claims

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill is about to bring huge changes to claims involving accidents at work. 

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 has a number of regulations that have to be followed by employers in relation to providing a safe place of work, safe equipment and safety clothing where necessary in respect of their employees.

When an accident happens at work the employee can bring a claim for compensation for any injuries they have suffered as a result of the employer having breached the regulations.

The regulations impose strict liability on the part of the employer. In most cases the employer has been negligent in some way.  However if the employer has not been negligent if the regulations have been breached he is till liable to his employee.

Take the following example:  An employee is at work using a spanner. The spanner is in some way defective and as the employee has used the spanner is snaps, causing him to fracture his finger.  The employer is not negligent.  The employer had no reason to know that the spanner was defective and to have replaced it.  The employer is still liable however.  The Health and Safety at Work Act requires the employer to provide his employee with safe tools.  The spanner is not safe – it is defective and the employer is therefore liable – irrespective of the fact that he is not negligent.

The Bill however seeks to “do away” with the regulations.  The Government is looking to instead have criminal regulations in place.  Whilst employers can therefore be prosecuted by the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) for breaching the regulations, the employee will not be able to bring a civil claim against the employer for any breaches and injuries that result from that breach.  If the employee wants to bring a claim against his employer he must show negligence.

It follows that if the above case were to occur following the implementation of the bill the employee will have no claim for compensation whatsoever.  Whilst the HSE can investigate and take whatever action they see necessary, the employee will be excluded from any compensation claim for his broken finger unless he can establish some degree of negligence on the part of his employer !

This page © Copyright 2012, Vashti Norman Solicitor, Mediator and Notary Public.