PI Brief Update

Mini Review: The Government's Response to the Official Injury Claim Service Inquiry - Amy Lanham Coles, Temple Garden Chambers

25/01/24. The Official Injury Claim (OIC) service was developed to provide a free and accessible service for bringing low-value, road traffic accident personal injury claims. The online portal was designed to enable people to progress claims both with and without legal representation. First implemented on 31 May 2021, it is due a review.

To that end, the government recently delivered their response to the Justice Committee’s Ninth Report of Session 2022-23, “Whiplash reform and the Official Injury Claim Service (HC 1140)”.

In their inquiry, the Justice Committee had noted that 90% of portal users remain legally represented and there is a significant backlog of cases. They also commented it was difficult to determine with any certainty whether the whiplash reforms had in fact reduced insurance premiums and queried a potential lack of awareness about the service.

The government’s response offers the following key conclusions about OIC:

1. Despite initial technical issues, OIC is generally working well (p. 1, 4). The technical challenges which posed a particular difficulty for professional users have largely been resolved (p. 8-9);
2. The evidence suggests that OIC is not dissuading claimants from bringing claims (p. 4);
3. On average, unrepresented claimants settle claims more quickly than represented claimants (p. 10);
4. “Unrepresented claimants are settling their claims for similar, if not higher amounts, to represented claimants” (p. 11);
5. “The MoJ has not set any targets for increasing the number and proportion of unrepresented claimants and this has never been an objective of the whiplash reform programme” (p. 5). Nevertheless, there has been a small increase in the proportion of unrepresented claimants using OIC (p. 5);
6. Whilst there was a backlog of 385,000 claims as of 31 September 2023, many claims lie dormant which distorts settlement rate figures and timeliness (p. 10);
7. The MoJ has been working with MIB, CPL, MedCo and the senior judiciary to “better understand claim progression, timeliness and dormancy across these different systems” and intends to continue to do so (p. 10, 12);
8. “The Government made a deliberate decision not to spend public money on an expensive but short-lived awareness campaign to advertise the implementation of the whiplash reforms and the launch and operation of the OIC portal” and this was the “correct” approach (p. 6);
9. The government are considering changes to the medical reporting process – informed by a separate consultation exercise (p. 12);
10. The MoJ, FCA and Treasury are reviewing the impact on insurance premiums and their findings will be reported in line with their statutory obligations at the very least (p. 13).

So what’s next? The Justice Committee gave the assurance in their report that they would return to these issues once the Supreme Court has given its verdict in the case of Hassam v Rabot. The MOJ will also be conducting a review after 31 May 2024.

Image ©iStockphoto.com/KonovalikovAndrey