The Claims Portal in review 2014

Could RTA claim notifications be set to peak in 2014? We analyse the Claims Portal’s dashboard data to crunch the numbers.

Ever since the data began to be collected in May 2010, solicitors, insurers and other personal injury professionals have kept a keen eye on information from the Claims Portal Company. Four and a half years on and a rich seam of MI on RTA claims notifications, as well as details of the progress claims make as they pass in and out of the fast track process is available for examination.

So far, the six months from May to October 2014 are on target to generate a higher cumulative number of Claim Notification Forms (CNFs) than the previous six monthly high during 2012. As of October 2014; 426,571 CNFs had been created and sent, against 420,801 in the same period during 2012 (see table below)

* The number of claims created and sent include resubmitted claims that used the Exit process to transfer claims between organisations.

2012-2013 represents the highest watermark reached in 12 months, with 883,257 CNFs across the whole financial year and even with the current numbers of cases exiting the process in 2014 also running at a record number (see figure 1), this year is on course to break previous CNF records.

One of the interesting trends has been spikes in CNF numbers during months when cases are being transferred between organisations. Cases are being resubmitted having used the exit process already so this artificially inflates the number a little. For example, on average around 11 000-13 000 cases exit the process every month, but in March 2014, an additional 5000 more cases exited. This was also true of September and October 2014, which reflects the climate of consolidation we have expected in the RTA personal injury marketplace.

Through the exit door

Claims have left the fast track process for a huge variety of reasons, and in March 2011 the RTA Portal introduced an ‘exit button’, to accommodate cases that didn’t leave the process at the end of stages one or two. The MI falls a little bit short given that the vast majority do so for no other given reason than the claim requires more investigation, however the figures do show a clear risk of duplication as cause. In those three and a half years, almost 30 000 duplicate claims have been submitted.

Exiting at stage 2

One of the most interesting observations is in the numbers of claims they have which successfully exit the process at stage two. The data reveals a considerable change over time, with initial users of the portal exiting at stage two considerably more than today (see figure 2).

These data suggest that for personal injury professionals and compensators the challenge is in holding fast to the process or choosing to exit and pursue the action via alternative means. The deadlines for liability (15 working days) are a major contributing factor in why so many exit, with almost 800,000 hitting a liability timeout since launch.

For further review of the Claims Portal MI, visit the executive dashboard, here