The English people have spoken. And we’ve made it abundantly clear we’re not interested in so-called access to justice. What decent hardworking people in this country want is cheaper car insurance. And now that Tereeza May has thrown out David “reason will prevail” Cameron and his Lord Snooty “all in this together” chums and brought together a crack team of all the “talents”, there should be nothing to stop UK.gov from delivering it. Let’s crack on with the War on Claims and give the people what they’re asking for!
There’s clearly work to do, though. Only this week the highly respected Confusing Towels insurance price index pricing indicator revealed that motor insurance premiums rose by almost a fifth in Q2 2016. That’s the biggest annual rise since 2011. Steve Jones, head of P&C at WTW (the new name for Towels What’s On) reckons it all down to car manufacturers having made all their vehicles too complicated since Q1 and them all suddenly being a lot more expensive to repair.
But I think we all know the real reason: it’s because malingering miscreants up and down the land are still being allowed to make motor insurance claims when there’s basically no good reason why they should.
And when claim-makers are hurting British motorists where they especially don’t want to be hurt, on a literally epic scale, it’s no time for splitting hairs over bad claims and so-called good claims. If we tolerate one claim, another will surely follow in its wake and premiums will carry on going up.
The claims question demands a solution that won’t just be temporary. The time to act is now. Before motor insurance become completely unaffordable and we all have to stop driving. And then we’ll all be stuck at home with nothing to do – or reduced to riding around on bicycles or something. Which would probably be worse. At least if you’re at home you could go on the Playstation or build a model horse out of pasta or something.
All of which makes it the mother of all regretabilities that some self-appointed lobby group styling itself the Law Society has teamed up with notorious ambulance chasers the Association of Personal Injury Liars (APIL) and the Motor Accident Scroungers Society (MASS) to argue AGAINST government plans to crack the whip on whiplash.
This bunch reckon newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer Phil Hammond should “think again” about his predecessor’s plans to scrap general damages for minor soft-tissue injuries and increase the small claims limit for personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000 (thereby depriving would-be whiplash claimants of the oxygen of legal representation).
Restricting people’s legal rights, they claim, ”will penalise honest claimants who have been genuinely injured and have legitimate claims.” Honest claimants? Are they serious?
Well, all you solicitor types can just suck it up! That’s what we say here at Bankstone News. If you’re so bothered about not having any work to do helping people pretend their necks are all sore, take a course on international trade negotiations. Plenty of work going for lawyers in that particular field right now.
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