Claims Standards Council drops fast-track claims resolution
The Claims Standards Council (CSC) will conduct "monitoring visits" of member companies as part of its efforts to regulate the claims management sector.
Proposals for fast track claims resolutions have also been dropped in the third draft version of the CSC rules.
In the new version, the CSC said it would arrange for monitoring visits "as frequently as it considers appropriate".
It said: "Such monitoring visits and investigations can be in respect of all or part of a member's activities."
The visits will look at compliance with the rules and investigate "any matter that appears to constitute, or could lead to, an act of misconduct".
Under the proposed rules, members will be given five working days' notice of a visit, as well as areas of business that will be investigated.
CSC members will come under the scrutiny of an independent discipline and enforcement committee, which will be able to privately censure members, impose fines or compensation payments, place conditions on continuing membership, or publicly censure a member.
CSC chief executive Anthony Burns-Howell said: "The final version will depend upon the types and levels of feedback and it is intended to submit the next draft to the OFT by the end of this year."
On the removal of the fast track proposals, a spokesman for the CSC said it was "not appropriate for the CSC to endorse a commercial scheme in a document that was aiming for self regulation".
