Insurance and legal trade press roundup
Insurance Times
Personal lines market returns to growth
Hooray, Datamonitor says the insurance sector’s rate rises will push through growth in the industry over the next four years, bringing in combined GWP of £29.2bn by 2014.
The said it expects to see the strongest growth in 2011 and 2012, with growth continuing, though at a decreased rate, in 2013 and 2014. Datamonitor financial services analyst Stephen Ko said: “Private motor is seeing double-digit rate increases every quarter: 11%, 12% and 13%.”
Post Magazine
Helpline claims to be hoax victim over texts
I’ve heard a lot of insurance company claims directors quoted in the media that they’ve received unsolicited texts from claims farmers telling them they’ve got a £5k whiplash action in the bag if they want it.
Interestingly, National Accident Helpline has now claimed to be a victim of such calls, with staff receiving texts. The problem was, the calls purported to be from NAH itself.
As it turns out NAH was caught up in a Claims Standards Council investigation of unsolicited text messages.
According to the CSC, replies to the messages were picked up by the National Accident Helpline and then forwarded to one of its panel solicitors. The findings of the investigation were forwarded to the Ministry of Justice this week.
However, Beth Powell, consumer director of National Accident Helpline, told Post: “In the past month we have reported three text messaging companies for their unregulated activity and one online company to the Ministry of Justice for passing off their businesses under our name. One of the text messaging companies had targeted four of our own senior staff, claiming to offer £3750 in compensation.”
Motor Claims soar in wintry weather –
Not being a Doctor I couldn’t tell you whether this means more or less whiplash claims, but perhaps motor insurers will get their first frostbite legal action?
AA Insurance has reported a 23% jump in motor insurance claims in the first week of December, following a spate of icy weather conditions across the UK.
During the period, the broker received 609 claims, including 210 traffic collisions, 104 incidents with parked cars, 34 cars hitting walls, two collisions with cyclists and one collision with a wild boar.
News in brief from the legal press…
Law Soc Gazette
As is his wont, FOIL president Tim Oliver who runs a law firm that specialises in high volume, fixed cost work and 3rd party capture, says the fixed cost RTA regime needs extending and that third party capture should be encouraged.
It seems the government wants to avoid the embarrassment caused by Geoff Hoon and all those cash for lobbying stings when he asked for £5000 a day and is establishing a register of lobbyists with a new bill next year and a green paper in February. The Law Society has jumped at the opportunity, although it’s unclear how private companies will be able to circumvent conflict of interest issues…
Local Government Lawyer
The government has published another list, this time of courtroom closures. There’s not been a huge amount in the insurance press about how this will affect case management, but it’s a good bet there will be some raised eyebrows when a claim in Northwich gets referred to Birmingham or somewhere miles away…
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