Wilson Carswell urges insurers to use new treatments for treating post traumatic stress.
Cutting claim costs is always attractive to insurers as the benefits can go straight to the bottom line.
Although Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has something of a bad name in the insurance world, it is a real condition. There is a well-defined pattern of symptoms in PTSD and they allow a clinical psychologist to make a definite diagnosis.
PTSD is very common even after road accidents in which there is limited physical damage. It has been estimated that as many as one in ten of all those involved in road accidents will develop PTSD. This causes prolonged problems, which the insurer often ends up paying.
One technique to reduce such costs is Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). For the last ten years an increasing number of mental health care professionals in this country have been trained in the technique.
"Counselling" and drugs don't really tackle the problem of PTSD. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) has to date been the recommended treatment. However, EMDR usually takes only half as many sessions, thereby cutting costs dramatically.
Why isn't EMDR used more widely? One of the reasons is that PTSD may not be recognised by general practitioners. Perhaps surprisingly, psychology is not a prominent feature in medical school syllabi and this leads to a general lack of awareness of the close relationship between psychological symptoms and the physical body in many doctors.
Insurers may not have this particular problem but are often unaware that a relatively `simple' psychological technique can quickly resolve many cases of PTSD.
It grates to see newspaper reports of huge awards for PTSD. This overlooks the fact that in most cases PTSD is a `curable' condition, and not a permanent feature of a road accident victim's life.
It may be that the insurance industry, rather than the medical profession, will adopt effective therapies for PTSD.
