Whiplash claims increase car insurance costs

By Tom Farley, Mon 16 Jan 2012 - Published in Car Insurance

Rising whiplash claims are driving up the cost of car insurance, an investigation by the Transport Committee found.

Members of the organisation are now calling upon the government to raise the threshold of compensation in whiplash cases and crack down on the "no win, no fee" culture in the UK.

Bosses at the Transport Committee criticised the "ambulance-chasing" texts, emails and automated voice messages that two-thirds of Brits receive which encourage people to claim compensation at every opportunity.

Injuries such as whiplash are very costly for insurers to challenge because the diagnosis is often subjective. Despite collision rates in the UK decreasing over 2011 the AA revealed that personal injury claims continued to rise with 70 per cent of those being for whiplash.

Louise Ellman, chair of the cross-party Transport Committee, said: "Insurers, solicitors and claims management companies are driving up motor premiums by encouraging people caught up in road accidents to claim for personal injury, car hire and other legal costs."

The AA recently found that car insurance claims increased by 28 per cent for January 2012 from the previous year.

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