Legal Cost Specialists

Abuses in RTA claims portal

Back in January 2010, I raised some concerns about the upcoming new RTA claims process. I wrote:

“Much has been made of the fact that the level of fixed fee is set below the average amounts recovered by claimant lawyers under the current rules. Good news for defendants. But, and it may be premature to start looking for problems before we have seen the final rules, one issue looks likely to cause defendants problems unless expressly dealt with in the small print of the new rules.

Under the current predictable costs regime, recovery of costs is governed by the level of damages actually agreed. If a case settles at a level within the small claims track the predictable costs scheme does not apply. However, under the new claims process the fixed fee of £400 for stage one, providing notification of the claim to the defendant, is payable at the point when liability is admitted. At this point there will be no medical evidence. The scheme is only meant to apply where the personal injury element of the claim is at least £1,000. The Ministry of Justice’s report recognises that some claims may be valued at the outset as having “reasonable prospects” of exceeding £1,000 but it later becoming clear that they do not. At that stage the claim will leave the process. However, I can see no mention of defendants getting their £400 back. Am I being incredibly cynical in thinking that there will be a very high number of claims that claimant lawyers value as having reasonable prospects of recovering over £1,000 only for these claims to undergo a surprising downwards revaluation or even disappear entirely after the £400 has been paid? There is no time limit under the scheme for obtaining a medical report and defendants may only discover several years down the road that they have been stitched-up in tens of thousands of claims.”

Now, FOIL is reported in the Law Society Gazette expressing the following concerns:

“FOIL also blamed claimant lawyers for causing delays in the portal process, and called for time limits to be introduced for claimants between stages 1 and 2.

It added that insurers should not have to pay stage 1 costs until after completion of the second stage, to avoid payments being made on cases that are not progressed beyond stage 1.”

It seems as though my concerns about the risk of legal costs leakage have proved to be justified.

3 thoughts on “Abuses in RTA claims portal”

  1. Oh what tosh! FOIL will always bang their Insurance clients drum about abuse of the system, whilst keeping very quiet about Insurers practices

    Which include deliberately allowing matters to drop off the Portal because they calculate the overall cost is better to them in not following the Portal; deferring payment of payable damages and fees routinely beyond the time limits agreed; retaining Cost Draftsmen/Solicitors to scrutinise and dispute claims for whatever reason possible.

    The Insurers demanded this system, and already winge about it.No wonder the state of the costs industry is as it is

  2. actually, anon2, I have to disagree with you. Insurers continue to kick up such a fuss about even fixed fees, that we will be here for a long, long time to come 🙂

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