New proposals in the report, Road to Reform, include:<\/p>\n
A reduced limitation period \u2013 all whiplash and soft tissue injuries must be claimed for within 12 months of the accident;<\/p>\n
Minimum injury thresholds \u2013 symptoms must persist for longer than three months for a claim to be made;<\/p>\n
Disability levels \u2013 medical reports assess the % of disability caused by the accident, with only those exceeding a certain level receiving compensation; and<\/p>\n
Compensation tariffs \u2013 any compensation paid should be set against a \u2018clear, transparent\u2019 tariff dependent on the severity of the injury.<\/p>\n
Aviva chief executive Maurice Tulloch said: \u201cWhiplash remains an easy target for fraudsters, claims management companies and even opportunistic motorists who have not suffered an injury to \u2018have a go\u2019 and claim compensation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as there are financial incentives to pursue low-level injury claims with no real risk of incurring legal costs and without objective proof of being injured as a requirement, these problems will continue to plague insurers and their customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claims director Rob Townend told Insurance Times that in addition to reducing the incentives for making a whiplash claim, the proposals would also reduce the time it took to process a claim, therefore cutting costs and providing claimants with an improved service.<\/p>\n
\u201c[These proposals] will compress the process, and force people to think about treatment, diagnosis and notifying people they want to make a claim a lot quicker,\u201d he said. \u201cThe quicker you deal with anything in the claims department the better it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, more importantly, you are treating the consumer\u2019s symptoms a lot quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report builds on previous recommendations published last year by Aviva, which suggested banning referral fees outright, compensating minor whiplash claims with treatment rather than cash, and increasing the small claims track limit to \u00a35,000 from \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n
Source:www.insurancetimes.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New proposals in the report, Road to Reform, include: A reduced limitation period \u2013 all whiplash and soft tissue injuries…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-car-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sure2insure.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}