The fixed level of personal injury (PI) claims refutes the belief that the country is in grip of a compensation culture, a Datamonitor report has said.
The report said until 2004 the amount of PI claims had been falling year on year from 743,593 claims in 2001 to 706,715 in 2002/03.
But in 2003/04 there was a jump in disease claims, the report said, and the total number of claims increased by 9% to 770,243.
The report said that the media had enhanced a compensation culture “myth”.
The report's author, David Stephenson, said: “The level of media coverage that surrounds personal injury claims has created a myth about the rise in their numbers, and there certainly is a degree of sensationalism about it, but the underlying trend is that claims are falling.”
Stephenson also said it was “the cost of claims rather than the number of claims that is giving insurers the biggest headache”.
