Call to speed up injury claims

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has again called for the government to implement a more efficient system for settling personal injury claims.

The organisation claims the average motor accident personal injury claim takes 730 days to settle, while workplace claims take three years.

"What tends to happen is that a person who has been injured goes to a lawyer who does a vast amount of research, often unnecessarily in our opinion, before putting the claim anywhere near the insurer," said Stephen Hadrill, director general of the ABI.

"There is then a process of negotiation over liability and settlement in a very adversarial system."

The body is backing a government proposal made a year ago, which would force lawyers to inform insurance companies that a claim might be made within five days of the accident, and insurance companies to decide whether they will settle within a fixed time period of 15 days for motor accident claims and 30 days for workplace injuries. It claims this system could reduce the delay by three-quarters.

The ABI estimates there were 250,000 motor accident personal injury claims last year, with 80% of these non-contentious.