Leading retro fashion label BIBA has issued a stark warning to Theresa May’s so-called Government.
Unimpressed. That’s probably the best way of describing how BIBA tough-guy Greyman Trudgehill feels about politicians latest pronouncements on the vexed question of the so-called Ogden rate (see previous editions of BS News).
The insurance community – insurers and brokers alike – have made it abundantly clear that what is needed on the Rate of Ogden front (following former Justice Secretary Lizzy Truss’ unhinged decision to move it from +2.5% to -0.75%) is prompt remedial action, not a lot of useless chat.
But – guess what – rather than fix the rate, the government, in its wisdom, has decided to waste a load more precious time ‘looking into’ things.
Some jumped-up mini-junta styling itself the Justice Committee, was the first body entrusted with time wasting on Ogden. Having already squandered any amount of days, weeks and months poring – in what David Davis would doubtless describe as excruciating detail – over proposed new legislation, the Justice Committee has decided – guess what again – to waste more time!
Its report – just issued – flies in the face of common sense by decreeing that insurer’s profits should continue to be put at risk (and decent ordinary policyholders required to compensate them against this risk through higher premiums) while further evidence is gathered about how life-changingly injured people and/or their carers invest their winnings in the ‘real world’.
Well, if politicians only lived in the real world, they’d understand the urgent need for what the late lamented J B Priestley was wont to refer to a little less conversation a little more action! If severely injured people don’t know how to invest their bumper payouts for a handsome return, that’s hardly insurers’ fault (or that of decent honest claims-free policyholders)!
Some numpty called Bob Neill, the so-called chair of this ridiculous talking shop, claims outlandishly that “Setting the discount rate is much more than a technical decision. It involves balancing the interests of claimants with defendants and the social costs of increased clinical negligence payouts and increased insurance premiums with protecting the interests of vulnerable claimants. If the Government remains convinced that it must change the assumptions it makes about how damages will be invested, to adjust the balance between the interests of different groups in society, it should say so. It is vitally important that we get this right, and that changes are evidence-based.”
See! I told you they love to talk. Wordy b*stards.
Anyway, Trudgehill’s having none of it. Quite rightly pointing out that increasing the cost of insurance is about the worst ill you can inflict on any society, GT demands immediate action. “Any further delay.” he states plainly, “would exacerbate the wider social impacts that a change to a negative rate value has already had.”
Well said, Grey, we say here at Bankstone News!
Enough of this fannying about, please, HMG.
Pull your bloomin’ finger out and get that blasted rate fixed!
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