“Surprising” is how the Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO) describes the rise in the number of motor insurance claims registered with the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU).
Citing data from the CRU, ACSO noted how the latest figure went up to 660,608 from the 650,019 motor cases recorded in the 2017/18 period. In the view of executive director Matthew Maxwell Scott, the increase seems to be in conflict with the recent insurance cost information released by the Association of British Insurers (ABI).
“The ABI justified the whiplash reforms by arguing that motorists paid more for their car insurance because of ‘an epidemic’ of whiplash claims,” asserted Maxwell Scott. “Now they say that, thanks to the whiplash reforms, premiums are falling.
“Yet CRU data shows motor claims have risen slightly in the last 12 months. If insurance premiums are so sensitive to claims numbers, as the ABI suggests, surely car insurance prices would have increased?”
In April the ABI reported that the average price paid for motor insurance in the first quarter stood at £466, the lowest quarterly figure since the same period in 2017.
Meanwhile the ACSO official added that the Civil Liability Act was among UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s “very few significant legislative legacies” but that the numbers coming out from the government itself indicates that “the ‘evidence’ to justify the reforms is very slim indeed.”
Hoping that earlier reassurances prove to be meaningful, Maxwell Scott stated: “It remains to be seen what impact the new portal will have on the number of claims, but we can be thankful at least that during the passage of the Civil Liability Bill, ministers reassured the public that they will ‘ensure that the system really works and that we have tested it again and again before rolling it out, because otherwise a system designed to increase access to justice may inadvertently decrease that access through the malfunctioning of the online portal.’”
