Insurers blamed for creating 'dysfunctional' system of new claimants

Insurers and prime minister David Cameron have come under fire from the incoming president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers for creating a “dysfunctional” system through the third-party capture of people who would never otherwise make a claim.

That is according to the Law Gazette which reported that Karl Tonks told delegates at the APIL conference in Newport yesterday that insurance companies using referral fees who then wondered why claims were rising were ‘as deluded as the chronic alcoholic who doesn’t seem to be able to understand why he keeps waking up with a headache’.

Tonks also accused insurance companies of slowing down the system and driving up costs by refusing to share information on fraudsters - claiming to have been told by one insurer that “it’s much better for us to run cases all the way and then get more costs back”.

He said the path to compensation for victims of industrial disease was ‘littered with broken promises’ and accused insurers of accepting premiums with little or no prospect of ever paying claims.

He also called for a fund of last resort for industrial disease sufferers to track down insurers and an employers’ liability insurance bureau.

“This is the industry’s corporate responsibility and insurers individually and collectively need to step up, accept their responsibility for this scandal and put it right,” he said.

Tonks then blasted the prime minister in the wake of his attack on the health and safety “monster” and plans to remove red tape announced earlier this year. The new president said the relaxing of health and safety legislation would have both a social and financial cost and “take us back to a bygone era, where children were sent up chimneys and people lost limbs with no recourse and no criticism of irresponsible employers”.