Commenting on the publication of the government’s statutory review of the whiplash injury regulations, Matthew Maxwell Scott, executive director of the Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO), said:
“While it’s welcome that the Lord Chancellor has finally published the uprated tariff, we still don’t know when this will come into effect, given there is still an eight-week consultation with the Lady Chief Justice to come and then a parliamentary process to get through.
“The government needs to ensure the necessary statutory instrument is laid before parliament as soon as possible in 2025. As things stand, the tariff has been eroded considerably by inflation, as the Lord Chancellor acknowledges, but we still run the risk of the tariff not being revised until around four years after its original implementation. That seems grossly unfair on injured people who have already had to face significant erosion of their rights.
“We also still don’t know whether the whiplash reforms have led to any of the promised savings for motorists, and so eagerly await the FCA report on this. In the meantime, and given record average premiums, the only winner seems to be the insurance industry.
“So the painful wait goes on not only for the new whiplash tariff but also for the government’s long-awaited response to the 2023 medical reporting consultation. Medical experts have had their fees frozen for more than a decade, and if we want to ensure the health of this part of the legal market as well as of motor accident victims, this needs to happen without further delay.”
APIL
Kim Harrison, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said:
“Following this review injured people will receive less compensation in real terms than they did in 2021 when the tariff was introduced. A 15 per cent increase is not enough. If the Lord Chancellor were simply to increase the actual tariff, as introduced, in line with inflation using the Consumer Price Index, rather than making convoluted predictions about future inflation, the increase to damages in the tariff would be 22 per cent.
Increases in inflation have been eroding injured people’s damages since the tariff was introduced, a tariff which was set at an insulting, arbitrary level to begin with. The outcome of this review has made an unjust situation even worse.
An inflationary increase to reflect how prices have gone up in reality over the past three years is the very least injured people needed. It seems they continue to be the whipping boys for the cost of car insurance premiums. The facts are that since the tariff came into effect, the number of claims has plummeted, the cost of injury claims to insurers has nosedived, and yet motor premiums have continued to rise. We look forward to seeing HM Treasury’s conclusions when it reports on the effects of the 2021 reforms on policyholders, as required by the Civil Liability Act.”
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