Law360 is providing free access to its coronavirus coverage to make sure all members of the legal community have accurate information in this time of uncertainty and change. Use the form below to sign up for any of our weekly newsletters. Signing up for any of our section newsletters will opt you in to the weekly Coronavirus briefing.
Sign up for our Commercial Litigation UK newsletter
You must correct or enter the following before you can sign up:
Thank You!
Law360, London (April 22, 2020, 10:11 AM BST) -- The British government has again delayed its reforms to the way claims for "whiplash" injuries are processed as a result of the "unprecedented impact" of the coronavirus pandemic on insurers and courts.
Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, told Parliament on Tuesday that the wide-ranging reforms set out in the Civil Liability Act will now go live in April 2021.
It is the third time the reforms, which alter the way claimants seek damages for minor traffic injuries such as so-called whiplash damage to the neck in a car crash, have been postponed. They were originally expected to be enacted in April 2019 but were pushed back to April 2020 and then delayed again to August.
"The government has considered representations from key stakeholder groups and agrees that now is not the time to press ahead with significant transformational change to the personal injury sector," Buckland said.
He added that the new deadline would enable businesses "to focus their energies on delivering their response to COVID-19, and will allow the government to focus on delivering key services in the justice area during this difficult time."
Earlier this month, groups of claimants called for a further delay to the reforms, pointing to the legal questions still outstanding and the disruption caused to the industry and government by the COVID-19 pandemic.
James Dalton, director of general insurance policy at the Association of British Insurers agreed it was a necessary step. But he cautioned against further delay "beyond what is absolutely needed."
The changes in the Civil Liability Act will now mean that people making motor-related personal injury claims of up to £5,000 ($6,075) will instead file their complaints on an online injury claims website built by the Motor Insurers' Bureau, a quasi-governmental body that is funded by the insurance industry.
The government says the £5,000 threshold, up from a previous limit of £1,000, will cut fraud and reduce litigation costs for insurers, driving down insurance premiums by an average of £35 a year.
Crucially though, the Civil Procedure Rules Committee, under the Ministry of Justice, has yet to publish a set of rules and tariffs that would determine how small value claims should be handled on the website.
Other areas of the new system still need to be ironed out too, including what happens if a claim is rejected by an insurer via the portal.
Gordon Dalyell, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said that, without addressing those remaining hurdles, a further delay was "meaningless."
"This is now the third time the deadline has been moved and we are still to see any real progress on these issues," he said. "The priority must now be on finding workable solutions which will leave injured people with some hope of justice."
--Editing by Ed Harris.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
