Not everyone is an expert
Posted By : Bill On 03/07/2017 15:30:00
Still on teamwork, the management of major catastrophic injury claims is a real art. I know it doesn’t always seem so, but that might be because not everyone is truly expert.

I could give hundreds of examples, but just a few are enough.
  • instructing quantum experts when the claimant has not undergone or finished his or her rehabilitation
  • using neurosurgeons and psychiatrists as first choice following severe brain injury (they may be necessary, but that would be in the minority of claims)
  • letting the court set the timetable regardless of what would suit the claimant
  • choosing poor experts settling for too little.­
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Insurers and reserving properly
Posted By : Bill On 03/07/2017 15:30:00
There was an article in the paper recently, starting: “Motor insurers suffered combined losses of £3.5bn last year after former lord chancellor Liz Truss changed the rate which calculates deductions from compensation payments to injured people.” That looks to me like outrageous misinformation.

How can they assert that losses sustained in the year to march 2017 have been caused by a change which only came into effect on the 30th March 2017??

In any event, surely they have been foreseeing this problem over the last few years? We have all known for a long time that there has been a consultation about the rate, and that it was likely to go down. Shouldn’t the insurers, with billions of pounds at their disposal, have reserved appropriately?

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Perverting the course of justice
Posted By : Bill On 03/07/2017 15:30:00
A High Court judge recently jailed seven expert witnesses who were involved in “a very serious perversion of the course of justice” by giving false evidence. Another example of the compensation culture, you might think, with dishonest claimants and an inadequate legal system crucifying the decent insurance industry.

Not so! In thousands of cases, those witnesses provided insurance companies with expert rate surveyors who disputed the daily rate that a hire-car specialist could claim for providing replacement vehicles.

The experts, who are estimated to have saved insurance companies millions of pounds, were found guilty of contempt. Part of what they did was to accuse the claimants’ experts of inflating (dishonestly??) car hire charges.

So that’s millions of pounds that the insurance industry can use to get to grips with the new discount rate.

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One of the worst defended cases I've ever come across
Posted By : Bill On 03/07/2017 15:15:00
I finalised recently one of the worst defended cases I've ever seen. I can't give details, sadly, but it belied the comfortable notion which is current, that all defendants are cuddly, friendly people anxious to do their best for our claimants.

They suggested a settlement meeting, and then, when they had dragged the claimant, who was at the end of his tether, to a city far away from home, they refused to make any offers on either liability or quantum.

They played fast and loose with evidential rules in the hope of gaining an unfair advantage.

They rejected early offers of ADR, but were eventually forced to participate.

There are some good defence teams, but this one was at the very bottom.­
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