As the law currently stands, the person deemed to be non-fault in a road traffic accident (plus passengers from any vehicle) have the right to pursue a No Win No Fee Personal Injury claim. However, it’s not as simple as just having an accident and reporting it, we and the rest of the No Win No Fee sector have an obligation to ensure that the claims made to insurers are genuine and that fraudulent claims don’t get through our scrutiny of the applications made.
Unfortunately, there is a very small underbelly of fraud within the Road Traffic Accident claims market. It has been documented before, but this fraud is dominated by claimants from an particular background. The way the fraud tends to be carried out is that an accident does occur (some would say that a number of the accidents are not accidents, but in fact staged collisions of vehicles) and that one of the vehicle drivers registers a claim with their insurers to report the accident. Then the insurer receives claims from numerous family members who claim to have been passengers in the vehicle or vehicles and have been injured. In a way, it’s an easy scam to pull off… If two drivers know each other, agree to ‘have an accident’ and one party take the blame whilst the other makes a claim and they can then split the insurance payout. If they can get a few family members down to the Doctors to complain of neck pain and get that recorded on their medical records, they can then submit Personal Injury claims for the lot of them and potentially receive thousands and thousands in compensation.
Direct 2 Compensation Ltd is committed to taking every step possible to ensure that we do not submit any such claim.
Whilst this fraud is not exclusively limited to the community in question, it is dominated by them. I have no idea why, but somewhere along the line, the word has got out to them that this is a way to make a fast buck.
Fortunately, the Insurance industry is now aware of this problem and investigates any such multi-occupant Road Traffic Personal Injury claim in detail. Those found guilty of fraudulent claims now face jail – as has happened in the past years. You won’t normally find me supporting the insurance sector, but on this matter, we are united. Fraudulent claims do no good to anybody. They make my industry look bad and there are plenty of people and organisations only too willing to fire across our bows, and they cost us all money.
Only yesterday, we were approached by a gentleman from this community, wishing to claim for whiplash and shoulder pain further to an alleged RTA in December 2010. Alarm bells started to ring when he told us he was a passenger in a 7-seater vehicle driven by a family member. He was apparently accompanied by his Brother, Brother-in-Law, Sister, Mother and a Nephew and said that they all wanted to claim. We took the instructions and details from him and then immediately checked things out with the insurers. Unsurprisingly, the Insurers reported that the accident is under investigation for fraud. A number of the details we had been given didn’t match up to what the truth was and it seems that this is a claim that is not genuine and shouldn’t be pursued.
Thankfully, our investigations and determination not to get involved in any fraudulent activity has saved us a considerable sum of money. If we had tried to pursue this claim, we would not receive any payment – No Win No Fee means a Solicitor only receives fees if they are successful – and would have spent a large sum of money and time on pursuing a Personal Injury claim that had no basis.
So, the moral of the story is – Beware, Beware, be very, very aware!
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