EWJ June 2024 web - Journal - Page 14
Whiplash Reform and the
Official Injury Claim service
A House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government.
pensation for whiplash injuries that last up to 2 years;
Introduction and inquiry
In recent years, the Government has implemented
major reforms to the area of personal injury compensation for whiplash, underpinned by the Civil Liability Act 2018. Its reform programme included the
introduction of a legal definition of whiplash injury,
an increase in the upper threshold for the small claims
track from £1,000 to £5,000 (meaning legal costs for
claims valued below the new limit are no longer recoverable from the compensating insurer except in
limited cases), a ban on the settlement of claims without the provision of medical evidence, and the introduction of a new tariff of fixed compensation for
whiplash injuries. These measures were designed to
reduce what was seen by the Government as the disproportionately high number and cost of whiplash
claims in England and Wales. In 2016, it estimated
that whiplash claims were costing approximately £2
billion a year—an average of £90 per motor insurance
policy. The Government estimated that the measures
introduced under the Whiplash Reform Programme
would remove £1.2 billion from the cost of providing
motor insurance, with the insurance industry passing
on any savings to motorists (estimated at £35 per
motor insurance policy).
l Why most claimants continue to use legal repre-
sentation when using the online portal (90% since its
launch);
l Whether the OIC portal is accessible and easy-to-
use for claimants and/or their legal representatives;
l Whether claims brought using the OIC are being
settled in a timely manner, if timeliness could be
improved upon; and if so, how;
l Whether the OIC ensures access to justice for
everyone who may seek to make a claim;
l How widely known about the OIC is and how
potential claimants are made aware of its existence;
l How effective the OIC portal is in settling mixed injury claims (see paragraph 3 below), which cannot be
settled using the fixed tariff awards; and
l Any other issues in relation to the implementation
of the whiplash reform programme and operation of
the OIC to date.
The Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 set out a structured tariff of damages for whiplash injuries. These
regulations came into force on 31 May 2021, and
apply only to accidents occurring on or after that date.
The OIC service can be used for a range of different
RTA-related injury claims under £5,000, rising to a
total of £10,000 for all losses related to the accident.
Compensation for injury is known as damages for
pain, suffering and loss of amenity (PSLA), and are referred to as ‘general damages’. PSLA damages are
available for:
l Whiplash-only injuries: whiplash injuries to neck,
back or shoulders are valued using a whiplash-only
tariff. This is a pre-set amount of damages awarded
dependent on the type and length of injury suffered.
As part of the reform programme, the Ministry of
Justice (MoJ) commissioned the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) to develop an online portal, Official Injury Claim (OIC), for managing low-value road traffic
accident (RTA) claims, which launched in May 2021.
We launched our inquiry in February 2023 in response to concerns about the initial operation of the
portal and implementation of the whiplash reform
programme more generally. We invited written
evidence on the following terms of reference:
l What effect the measures introduced within the
whiplash reform programme have had on the number of minor personal injury (PI) claims to date;
l Mixed injuries: this is where whiplash injuries are
sustained alongside other non-whiplash type injuries,
such as broken or fractured bones. In these circumstances, the whiplash injury is assessed in line with the
tariff application, and the additional injuries need to
be valued separately.
l To what extent these measures met the Govern-
ment’s objective of reducing the cost of whiplash
claims to the economy; and to what extent are any savings being passed on to motorists through lower
insurance premiums;
l Non-whiplash injuries: any non-whiplash injuries
l The effects of raising the small claims track from
need to be assessed separately and the pre-set tariff
will not apply.
£1,000 to £5,000; the ban on settling whiplash claims
without medical evidence; and the fixed tariff of comEXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
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JUNE 2024