The RTA Claims Portal: 1 Year On

Most readers will know that I was a vocal opponent of the RTA claims portal when it came into being more than 12 months ago. The portal is designed to be a simple mechanism entirely online that allowed both road accident solicitors and motor insurers to communicate via a database rather through expensive and wasteful correspondence which bogged everybody down. Effectively the plan was to turn simple road accident cases into conveyor belt processed claims.

At its inception in April 2010 it was frankly - a complete shambles. The system took at least 6 weeks to bed down. The IT didnt work, the training didnt happen, the industry wasnt prepared and it was very difficult to think of any positive things to say about the whole concept.

So 1 year into what I would call full on business workflow ...how are things now?

Well, I have to admit that this portal really isnt all that bad. Yes it has dumbed the industry down considerably, yes it has automated our world to a degree but the pro's far outweigh the con's in my opinion.

We are settling claims at the lower end much quicker - we are not having to deal with poorly trained insurer staff (because we no longer need to speak to them in most cases) and finally we are getting interim costs paid upon admission of liability which has injected cash into the business well ahead of settling the actual claim.

The IT works better and in fact has recently been upgraded.

All in all - things are pretty good in the RTA world and rumours of its demise were indeed grossly exaggerated.