David McWilliam

Partner, Solicitor and Head of Personal Injury & Sports Law

DATE PUBLISHED: 21 Jun 2017 LAST UPDATED: 08 Jul 2021

Queen’s Speech Today: Ban on pre-medical offers & whiplash reforms

The Queen has today announced that legislation will be introduced in the form of a Civil Liability Bill that will crack down on fraudulent whiplash claims which is expected to reduce motor insurance premiums by about £35 per year. It will also introduce a new fixed rate tariff of compensation for whiplash injuries with duration of up to 2 years.

The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that there is a fair, transparent and proportionate system of compensation in place for damages paid to genuinely injured personal injury claimants.

The concern here is that the Bill is aimed to provide that full and fair compensation is paid to genuinely injured claimants. The tariff scheme that was proposed would result in extremely low settlement for injured claimants. This is not the aim of the Bill, but will be the end result.

Whilst I support the ban on pre-medical offers, I cannot support a tariff system for injured claimants that will result in them being undercompensated. This will not stop the small percentage of fraudulent claims. It will punish the vast majority of claims that are genuine.

The promise again to reduce insurance premiums simply will not happen. The insurance industry has promised this before and it did not happen. It will not happen this time either.

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