The 2013 Jackson reforms were implemented to reduce the number of road accident claims made, but recent figures published have shown that there has in fact been an increase in the number of claims. 837,317 were registered with the RTA portal website in 2014, an increase of 4,000 from 2012.

The Jackson reforms introduced a ban on referral fees for insurers who refer clients to personal injury lawyers, in an attempt to reduce the amount of small claims being made.

The president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, John Spencer, protests the figures however, claiming there had actually been a reduction on claims if directly compared to figures from 2012. He pointed out that the maximum amount for a claim in the RTA portal had actually been increased in 2013, from £10,000 to £25,000. Spencer claimed that it was ‘mischievous’ to present the figures as having risen, and said that: “If you deduct the proportion of cases likely to be in the £10,000-£25,000 category, then claims have gone down in net terms by about 5%.”

James Pritchard, Associate Solicitor specialising in personal injury claims at Macks commented “Yet again this sounds like the insurers pulling the strings of government – if they can convince the public that RTA claims are still on the rise then more cuts can be justified. It is telling that they have conveniently “forgotten” that the portal was expanded to include significantly more claims from 2013 onwards. Lies, damned lies and statistics??”

Source: Law Gazette