Official Injury Claims Portal

Clapham_Bob

Hi All
Does anyone have any experience of using the recently Official Injury Claims Portal for a road traffic accident? 

I have had a recent rear end shunt. Liability admitted. Left with ongoing neck problems.

I am trying to work out what to do for the best. My insurers have sent me to their solicitor, but they still want 25% of any damages. Whereas if I do it alone on the portal I keep 100% of the money. 

Seems I would be best to use the Portal as it is all tariff based now.

Looking to find out if anyone else has used it and how simple it was?

Bob

Sandtree

For a start, which portal?

There is the original portal which isnt designed for consumer user, though it is possible, and I suspect very few can guide you in using it because most claims professionals will be using software that integrates to it rather than directly on the portal itself. The portal's website points out most that dont want to involve solicitors claim directly from the third party insurer rather than try and use the portal.

There is now also the new portal for claims under the revised whiplash rules (https://www.officialinjuryclaim.org.uk/make-a-claim/). Given this only covers incidents that happened after the 31 May 2021 I doubt there are many or any that have been through the full end to end process yet

Assuming your incident was after this date you still have the two choices of the new portal or direct claim.

Clapham_Bob

Yes that the one - Official Injury Claims Portal - do you have any experience of it? and this vs instructing a solicitor to take 25% - seems like money for old rope to me?

Sandtree

Clapham_Bob said:

Yes that the one - Official Injury Claims Portal - do you have any experience of it? and this vs instructing a solicitor to take 25% - seems like money for old rope to me?

No, it only came into existence a couple of months ago when the small track limit for PI increased to £5,000 and whiplash became fixed amounts. My hands on claims days ended many years ago and the claims I have touched on recently are not consumer general insurance.

Unlike the other portal this one is supposed to be user friendly, the other portal I have used but only via software.

Assuming you are only talking whiplash and you have no complex loss of earnings or such then I'd struggle to see what value they could add but then thats been the very idea of moving whiplash from an negotiated value to a fixed tariff. The only possible argument is on the choice of Doc to say if its going to last 4 months or 7 but there are not vast jumps between the bands.