Ask Elite - November 2009
How could the new Ministry of Justice reforms affect my fleet costs?
The changes are not due to come into force until April 2010, however they could well result in increased cost for you.
Changes to civil procedure will affect personal injury claims of between £1,000 and £10,000.
The average time taken for a fleet to report a personal injury to the insurer is currently around 60 days, however the new rules will require insurers to make a liability decision within 15 business days of them receiving notification of the claim.
After April 2010 if the matter is reported to the insurer and the decision on liability is within the revised timescale the claimant costs may be as low or lower than they are now, varying between £400 and £1,450 but if the liability decision cannot be made within this time it will fall outside process.
Realistically if this happens the other side may issue proceedings and the claimant costs are likely to be more or, if the case runs to court, could well escalate far beyond (treble, quadruple) this and could impact on future premiums and local fleet budgets.
The conclusion is that fleet managers should be concentrating now on any mechanism whereby they can reduce the time it takes for driver incident reports to be passed to them and to the insurers.
We all of course hope that drivers will not be involved in incidents resulting in personal injury but take time to stop and consider that there are around 1100 whiplash claims alone every day in the UK.
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