The Official Injury Claim (OIC) service has released the portal’s numbers for the December 01, 2021 to March 31, 2022 period, and the Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO) is of the strong view that they point to the service’s inability to deliver.
“An urgent rethink is required in order to prevent complete sclerosis in the civil justice system,” commented ACSO executive director Matthew Maxwell Scott.
“The OIC was meant to make it easy for injured people to settle their claim, but this self-evidently is not happening. As a result, the justice system, already creaking from record court delays, risks falling over a cliff.”
Maxwell Scott’s assertion comes after it was revealed that 91% of all claims registered in the period had professional representation, while only 9% were made by unrepresented claimants. ACSO believes that the lopsided split indicates that the tool isn’t as consumer-friendly as intended.
According to the OIC data, 76% of the represented claims were filed through law firms; 23.8% via alternative business structures; and 0.2%, authorised claims management companies.
The ACSO executive director went on to declare: “The chapter in the government’s latest data report on ‘system operation’ borders on the Panglossian. It claims the OIC is working ‘as expected’ when professional users report huge issues and unrepresented claimants are having to turn to the support centre in ever-increasing numbers.”
To stop the portal from failing, the trade body recommends the installation of a change control group.
“We have been calling for some months for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to establish a cross-sector change control committee, similar to that set up for the previous claims portal, with the power to make the recommendations necessary to get the OIC to the point where it is fit for purpose,” said Maxwell Scott.
“The change control committee should be made up of technical experts from all sides who deal with the day-to-day detail of claims processes. Their brief would be to address practical problems quickly and openly, rather than having to rely on the current quarterly feedback loops.”
He went on to lament that the OIC’s existing advisory committee largely consists of people with no on-the-ground capability.
“That might be suitable once the OIC works, but we are nowhere near that stage,” added the ACSO official. “It all shows the danger of foisting an untried and untested system on the public with no meaningful oversight or review mechanism.
“While we accept the pressures the MoJ is under, it cannot continue the current bunker mentality. We know that experts from across the insurance and legal services industry will willingly give their time to make the government’s policy work. To refuse this offer in the face of evident dysfunction seems churlish.”
Maxwell Scott asserted: “We urge ministers to act now, set up a change control group, and save a bad situation from becoming much worse.”
Meanwhile the likes of Slater and Gordon chief commercial and insurance services officer Matt Jarvis and Lyons Davidson managing director Mark Savill have also been quick to react.
“As the data continue to show, current oversight of the portal is not working,” stated Savill. “The next set of data will take us to an entire year since launch, but I have no confidence that anyone will be able honestly to claim it is near to being fully operational.
“Despite repeated assurances that the developed platform is stable, we continue to receive system and data dictionary changes with little notice as the MIB (Motor Insurers’ Bureau) grapples with issues that remain.”
For Jarvis, the lack of stakeholder engagement has been disappointing, and he believes that what is needed is a shift to a model that is focussed on greater stakeholder collaboration.
“Equally,” he highlighted, “the level of data being released is also unsatisfactory given the amount of data stored in the OIC system. Quarter releases are insufficient and not in keeping with the ideology of the process; we should have access to all data in real time. Given we are nearly 12 months on since the launch of the portal, not to have this is simply unacceptable.”
