Ministry of Justice report on the RTA claims process

Interesting report just published by our friends at the MOJ who are obviously determined to emphasise the success of the RTA Portal that has been set up to deal with road accident personal injury claims.

The findings, which one can only assume are slanted in favour of the portal system, to a large extent suggest only a modest outcome on the performance metrics that were measured.

Snapshot here:

"Small but statistically significant reductions in mean general damages, mean costs and mean speed of settlement in low-value RTA claims were found. The evidence suggests around a 6% reduction in mean general damages, a fall of around 3–4% in average costs, and a reduction of around 5–7% in the average delay to settlement. The results are based on a total of 7,416 pre-Portal and 8,584 post-Portal claims that reached a settlement within the observation period."

But these meagre savings are in fact just a minor part of what is a wider assault on the personal injury industry. The real objective is to a) streamline (dumb down) the RTA process and then b) cut the fixed fee that lawyers receive.
Cue more changes next year. Law firms that specialise in PI must diversify or ... die. Its that simple.

Main MOJ report can be found here