Solicitor wants 25% of my personal injury compensation

InsideInsurance

TBH it is somewhat happening of its own accord anyway with the ever increasing prominence of the aggregators then increasingly optional add ons are not included in the quote when sourced via that distribution channel.

Via direct channels it is probably still more common for optional add ons to be included by default but with aggregators representing 56% of all new business sales (Data Monitor 2012) and growth continuing at 2% per year it is a declining issue.

Crazy_Jamie

Randy_Watson wrote: »

Govt is right to tackle bogus whiplash claims.

The changes to CFAs and the introduction and expansion of fixed costs regimes has very little to do with tackling bogus whiplash claims. The motivation behind it is to reduce the costs of personal injury litigation across the board, the vast majority of which is based on perfectly legitimate claims.

Randy_Watson

Having looked at the issue a bit more it is very difficult to decide who to believe.

The Govt and insurance companies give all the 'whiplash capital of Europe' and 'ambulance chasing lawyers' talk saying it puts up the cost of premiums.

The lawyers say the number of whiplash claims are reducing and the cost of insurance premiums are already falling without introducing these latest reforms.

Very difficult to find unbiased views or information on the whole subject.

From what I can gather, it seems claims fraud is the biggest problem. Surely the Govt, insurance companies and lawyers should all be working together to crackdown on fraud.

This should help keep premiums low and give more support to those with genuine claims...

InsideInsurance

Randy_Watson wrote: »

From what I can gather, it seems claims fraud is the biggest problem. Surely the Govt, insurance companies and lawyers should all be working together to crackdown on fraud.

This should help keep premiums low and give more support to those with genuine claims...

It is difficult to deal with because you need to protect the innocent that are injured but also stamp down on opportunism and other factors that are driving up the premiums of all innocent drivers too

If you work for an insurer you will most likely have one set of views and if you work for an accident management company/ solicitors etc you will probably have a different view. The problem is that both side have a conflict of interests.

From my point of view, as an insurance person, the rate of personal injury claims is still rising though possibly not as fast as it once was. Whilst there are some good upstanding solicitors out there there are without doubt a lot of firms wanting to make a "quick buck" and if someone has "learned" the symptoms of a relatively minor whiplash and can get £1,500 and the firm representing him will almost get the same again for minimal work there isnt much incentive for them to really push to ensure their injuries are 1000% genuine.

The other element I've always disagreed with is the fact that for these minor injury claims that the solicitors fee is often almost the same as the compensation due to the claimant.


Most will also dislike using the term "fraud" in connection with these. Whilst strictly speaking it is, there probably should be a distinction made between those that stage accidents or werent even in a vehicle but claim injury -v- those that genuinely were in an accident and had a bit of a stiff neck afterwards but over egg it to say it was disruptive to them for a month or two etc.

The former are the ones people do work together to stamp out but are not that big a proportion of cases. The second are where differences of opinion come out and are the most difficult to actually resolve.

Crazy_Jamie

Randy_Watson wrote: »

Having looked at the issue a bit more it is very difficult to decide who to believe.

The Govt and insurance companies give all the 'whiplash capital of Europe' and 'ambulance chasing lawyers' talk saying it puts up the cost of premiums.

The lawyers say the number of whiplash claims are reducing and the cost of insurance premiums are already falling without introducing these latest reforms.

Very difficult to find unbiased views or information on the whole subject.

As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle and the fault lies on both sides.

Fundamentally a person who is injured through another's negligence is fully entitled, and quite rightly so, to recover compensation in line with their loss. There is also nothing wrong with solicitors advertising their services so as to make people aware of their rights in this regard and to promote their own business.

However, lawyers have been riding this gravy train for far too long knowing that it was unduly beneficial to them, but because they were profiting for it they were quite content to continue in an opportunistic manner that has unfortunately been running as a common theme through society's issues in general in the past five or six years. The fact that lawyers were content to milk the system and put in massive costs bills rather than acknowledge the faults in the system means that they really only have themselves to blame for a lot of the changes. The backlash in terms of the reforms have bitten hard, and to my mind too hard, but frankly this could have been averted if the lawyers benefiting from the system had acknowledged the faults rather than forcing the government's hand.

At the same time, insurers have hardly been the angelic victims that they like to portray themselves as in the press. They endlessly throw out the 'whiplash claims are causing the rise in premiums' line to garner public support, but the reality is that they have played their own significant part in these costs being so high. For example, for years insurers were happy to pass along cases to solicitors and management companies in exchange for referral fees, which gave them a nice money spinner on the one hand but also notably increased the volume of claims facing the insurance industry generally on the other. The way that a lot of claims were defended (and to be fair, still are defended) also pushed costs up significantly, when if they were handled properly these cases would have cost much less.

The reality is that the insurance companies are businesses out to make money just like any other, and their stance of being the victims in this is entirely disingenuous. A fixed costs regime that came in a couple of years ago has significantly reduced the costs in low value personal injury claims, and has significantly reduced the costs that the insurance companies are having to pay in these claims. Has anyone seen a reduction in their premiums because of this? Of course not, because it is in the interests of the insurance companies not to acknowledge the changes and continue to play the 'victim' card.

From what I can gather, it seems claims fraud is the biggest problem. Surely the Govt, insurance companies and lawyers should all be working together to crackdown on fraud.

This should help keep premiums low and give more support to those with genuine claims...

Fraud isn't the biggest problem in terms of the amount that the system costs; not by a long shot. The issue is the level of costs in personal injury claims generally, which is what the fixed costs regimes and Jackson reforms are aiming to address. Fraud also isn't as big a problem as the general public tends to believe. A few years ago now Admiral estimated that fraud accounted for 4% of personal injury claims (i.e. roughly double the 2% that were proved as being fraudulent), with of course a lot of that number being groups of people that organised a lot of accidents, so it is 4% of claims rather than 4% of people who claim that are fraudulent. It's a far lower figure than most people think.

Clearly fraud is an issue that should be addressed, but realistically most insurance companies have departments and processes in place to deal with it that work reasonably well. Costs generally was and is a much bigger issue that required more significant steps to deal with.

Clive_Woody

Randy_Watson wrote: »

I was involved a car accident earlier this year and broke my leg. I was off work for eight weeks so was advised to make a personal injury claim.

I contacted a solicitor last week hoping for a 'no win, no fee' arrangement but was told I would have to give them 25% of my compensation if the claim was successful.

They said it was to do with the new laws and can't recover costs from the other persons insurance company.

Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Are there solicitors out there who will still take cases on a 'no win, no fee' basis? or is the 25% deduction commonplace now?

Before agreeing with a solicitor that you want him to handle the case ask him for a ball park figure of what he thinks your compensation might be.

Then approach the 3rd party insurers and tell them that you plan on making a claim for injuries resulting from the negligence of their client but you would be interested to know if they would make a settlement offer without the need for solicitors.

If they come back with a figure somewhere near the figure quoted by the solicitor then you could consider accepting (you may have to reject their first and even second offers - at the end of the day they want to keep costs as low as possible).

You are not obliged to use a solicitor but can handle the negotiation yourself if confident to do so.

BertTheRaccoon

Clive_Woody wrote: »

Before agreeing with a solicitor that you want him to handle the case ask him for a ball park figure of what he thinks your compensation might be.

When the OP finds such a solicitor with a crystal ball, please lt me know.

Parking_Trouble

I thought there were some published guidelines on what you get.

I have an example of a LVI with 4 whiplash claimants
Payouts £1550, £2300, £2300, £1825 (early offers were made but surprisingly rejected)
Solicitors paid £975, £1620, £1720, £1140

Plus After the Event premiums averaging £375 each.

Medical reports £234 each, plus £1200 NHS bill.

Total loss of old banger £1395 - too expensive to repair scraped rear bumper. Credit Hire cost £3152. Over twice the cost of a replacement car.

Total in the region of £24k

That's why insurance premiums have rocketed.

Crazy_Jamie

Clive_Woody wrote: »

Before agreeing with a solicitor that you want him to handle the case ask him for a ball park figure of what he thinks your compensation might be.

Then approach the 3rd party insurers and tell them that you plan on making a claim for injuries resulting from the negligence of their client but you would be interested to know if they would make a settlement offer without the need for solicitors.

If they come back with a figure somewhere near the figure quoted by the solicitor then you could consider accepting (you may have to reject their first and even second offers - at the end of the day they want to keep costs as low as possible).

You are not obliged to use a solicitor but can handle the negotiation yourself if confident to do so.

The problem with this approach being that no solicitor is going to give a 'ball park valuation' of a broken leg without seeing a medical report and gathering the necessary evidence in terms of special damages, neither of which they will do unless they are officially instructed. Negotiating direct with the insurer on a personal injury claim is something that anybody should be very wary of because valuing injuries is a specialist area, but doing it when the injury is as serious as a broken leg is just a straight up terrible idea.

BertTheRaccoon

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

valuing injuries is a specialist area, but doing it when the injury is as serious as a broken leg is just a straight up terrible idea.

Agreed, but not only when there are fractures.

Even simple early symptoms of a stiff/sore neck are impossible to detect as to whether they will turn into something worse/ protracted. For example, the acceleration of the onset of a permanent condition from a pre-existing asymptomatic degenerative problem by say 3-5 years.