A European Court of Justice ruling may well impact on UK citizens who suffer an accident or injury abroad. The ruling will apply to claims for injuries suffered after 11^th January 2009 and the rule change means that compensatory levels for injuries in an EU country will be set according to the levels of the country in question. Previously the level of damages would be according to English law for UK citizens.

This may result in lower damages although the level of compensatory damages generally under English law for pain and suffering is not generous in any event, especially compared to the US legal system.

Where the impact may be most significant may relate to the smaller number of serious injuries where special damages for lengthy or lifelong periods of loss of earnings and care costs may be awarded under English law, and jurisdictions do differ on this head of claim. Cases may take longer and interim damages may not be available under different jurisdictions Interim payments can be very important where cases take a long time to get near court and the injured party has little or no income and significant medical needs.

Foreign Office figures for last year state that there were over  3,700 serious injuries abroad for UK nationals which necessitated assistance from UK embassies or consulates. The number of overall injuries  is significantly higher.

Bogus and inflated personal injury claims relating to car crashes have become a massive and increasing problem. This is not a victimless crime either, we all suffer because losses to insurers as a result of this activity ultimately result in higher car insurance premiums for all of us.

The Insurance Fraud Bureau produce quarterly figures and analysis on this problem, and their latest report shows :-

• The problem is worst in Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester
• That action by insurers and police prosecutions can ameliorate the problem, and that there are definite ringleaders and organizers of this type of fraud
• Luton was one of the worst areas for car crash fraud only 3 years ago, but is now much less prone to it because 33 individuals were charged and convicted of car fraud offences in thye intervening period.
• That insurers are now doing much more to deal with the issue. They have agreed to fund a designated police unit to deal with insurance fraud, including household insurance policy fraud and set against the context of there being well over 100,000 fraudulent claims a year resulting in losses of over a billion pounds.

The annual report from the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) advises that over £250 million was paid out for solicitors on medical negligence claims during 2010-11, which is almost a 60% rise from the year before.

Just over £60 million of the funds was paid the Authority’s defence panel of solicitors. Other interesting facts to come out of the report are :-

• Just under 5,400 claims resulted in payouts.
• The number of medical claims for the year rose by 30% to 8,655.

The report indicates a belief that the rise in claims, costs and payout sis likely to be at least partially attributable to the attractive enhanced costs orders available for solicitors to take these types of cases on on a no win no fee basis.

There has been much discussion in the media recently about the plan to ban payment of referral fees to claims management companies, who deal in areas such as personal injury and claims for PPI policy misspelling. It looks as though times may not be so good for these companies in the future, yet at the moment they are doing very nicely thanks you.

A recent report indicates that :-

• Claims management companies income in the last year was over £580 million
• The above figure is a nearly 60% increase on the previous year
• Personal injury revenue was nearly £250 million
• Claims relating to financial services and product liability accounted for nearly £190 million.
• At the end of March 2011, there were over 3,200 claims management companies
• There were around 17,500 complaints made to claims management regulators last year

The Daily Mail reports, not for the first time, that car insurance costs are rising steadily due to a stream of bogus whiplash claims. The problem has got so bad that we are now the “whiplash capital of Europe” according to the Association of British Insurers. These claims also seem to be representative of a wider issue in society where exaggeration for financial gain is seen as being little more than a white lie and adoption of a view that if it’s ok for everybody else to do it, why shouldn’t I. . We refer here to the scandalous level of fraud in self certification mortgages before the financial meltdown. Unfortunately, we all suffer, as insurers will always seek to make profits, hence the hike in premiums. In addition to exaggeration of claims and injuries, there are countless instances of completely bogus claims. The writer has in fact been advised by a prominent injury lawyer that his insurer clients have spotted trends whereby in certain postcodes, families seem to be unbelievably accident prone, being involved in multiple care crashes per year !

The Daily Mail states that a staggering 1 out of every 140 people claim for a whiplash injury each year. To put this figure into context, it represents a whopping 1,200 claims every day. This is 6 times more than the number of claims per day for work injuries.

The problem with whiplash claims is that they are soft tissue injuries to the spine and notoriously difficult to diagnose or rule out both initially and in terms of prognosis. These injuries are also associated with the most common types of accident, where a stationary car is hit from behind. fraudsters.

Some more figures from the Daily Mail article

• ¾ of all PI claims are whiplash claims
• Insurers are paying out nearly £2 billion every year for whiplash claims.
• the cost of motor cover soaring by 40% in the last year
• The ABI estimates that whiplash claims are adding an average of £74.00 for each car insurance policy.

On first consideration, there is little for a claimant to lose in entering into a no win, no fee agreement with a lawyer, but research indicates this is not necessarily the case. Is this perhaps reflective of unreasonable expectations on lawyers now by the public, perhaps also visible in many other areas of legal services such as conveyancing. On the other hand, is it also perhaps indicative that lawyers are not getting their message across adequately or clearly. On this view, the customer is always right, as is the general case in most industries and businesses. What do you think ?

The research by Consumerintelligence.com suggests :-

• Over 1/4 users of a no win no fee claim service are disatisfied by the pay-out or lost their case
• 6% of adults,  equating to 2.9 million, have used no win no fee solicitors or claims firms in the past three years, with car accident injury claims the biggest growth area but 28% of them have been left disappointed with the outcome.
• More than 50% of the public state they have been cold-called or texted by claims firms in the past 3 years.
• Around 78% of people say they are concerned by the UK’s growing compensation culture
• Almost 80% of those surveyed are concerned that car insurance premiums are increasing due to injury claims.
• 48% of claims are based on car accidents.

It may be a sign of the times in more ways than one that personal injury claims by teachers are on the rise. Some might ascribe this to the so-called compensation culture and erosion in the traditional attitude of teaching as a career, others may say that many of the injuries are caused by violence and appalling behaviour in schools reflecting the breakdown of respect in our society generally.

Data has been released by the main teaching unions who fund or support most of these types of claims and the figures indicate that approximately £20 million of personal injury payments in 2010. The compensation related to categories of claims such as criminal injuries or slips, trips or falls.  The highest amount of compensation was £459,000 followed by a successful claim of £426,000.00 for injuries where a teacher was sprayed in the face by an aerosol can by a pupil. It is always worth remembering that in personal injury claims, in line with English law generally, compensation is in fact modest and most larger claims are caused by medical evidence suggesting long terms effects on earning capacity.