Whiplash laws could be barrier to justice for crash victims

The changes come into effect on May 31 and relate to the amount paid towards an injured person’s legal costs and how compensation is calculated for what are commonly described as whiplash injuries.

The aim is to try and reduce the amount of fraudulent claims and cut insurance premiums but Phillip Roberts, a personal injury solicitor at Shropshire's Lanyon Bowdler, said it was likely to make it more difficult for genuine claimants to access the justice and compensation they deserve.

He said: “Two significant changes are coming into force for those unfortunate to be injured in a road traffic accident. The first relates to the contribution which the defendant, or more usually their insurers, have to pay towards the injured person’s legal costs, and the second to how compensation is calculated.

“Currently, the claim for the injuries has to be worth in excess of £1,000 for the insurers to have to contribute towards the injured person’s legal costs. For the vast majority of cases that figure will rise to £5,000, a five-fold increase.

“At the same time, a tariff system is being introduced to determine the value of such claims and this will lead to a significant reduction in the levels of compensation recovered.

“At the bottom end of the tariff system is a fixed figure of £240 for those people who suffer a whiplash injury which takes up to three months to settle.

“Under the current system for valuing injuries, the same person would be entitled to receive up to £2,300 - so we are talking about a reduction of almost 90 per cent.

“For a whiplash claim to be worth more than £5,000 under the new system, the symptoms would have to last for more than two years.”

Phillip added: “The practical effect of this on those injured is that it will be uneconomical to instruct a solicitor to deal with the claim in the way they would now, so they will have to deal with it themselves, or make a significant contribution to their legal costs. The only good news is that it only applies to accidents on or after May 31.

“An online portal has been designed which is meant to assist people to pursue their own claims and a guide of no less than 64 pages has been issued.

“I have been doing this type of work for almost 20 years and have just about got my head around it all. I think it is completely unrealistic to expect people to deal with these claims on their own.”

Phillip said it was difficult to see how the changes would meet the targets of reducing fraudulent claims and insurance premiums.

“I have not seen anything likely to achieve that and even heard one barrister explain recently that it will actually make it harder for insurers to fight fraudulent claims,” he added.