Official Injury Claims Portal – First Three Months in Review
- Sam Cornelius
- Oct 22, 2021
- 4 min read
Introduced on 31st May 2021 after several years development and consultation, the official injury claims portal (OIC) was intended to be a “watershed moment” for revolutionising the way we deal with low value RTA claims. Of course, as with anything there were a few teething problems and the portal (and the whiplash reforms that prompted its creation) have their critics.
On 21st October 2021, the OIC published its official data from the first three months of usage. In this article, we take a look at this newly released data and consider whether, in these early stages, the OIC is showing signs of meeting it’s intended goals.
What was the purpose of the OIC?
Various sources have commented across the number of years the OIC has been in development about what it aims to achieve and how it intends to do this. However, generally we can surmise their being two main aims of the OIC.
1. To make the process of conducting a RTA claim simply, quicker, more streamline and generally more accessible.
2. To make the process cheaper (mainly by removing, where possible, the need for legal representation).
Does the data suggest these aims are being achieved?
First and foremost, we must all acknowledge that the OIC as a system, concept and way of working is still very new. It will take several more months, if not years, before any truly meaningful conclusions can be drawn on the impact of the OIC. Still, looking at what we do have, we must ask if there are early sign of success, or cause for concern.
Accessibility
The key metric will be volume of claims. The latest OIC data shows that between 31st May and 31 August 2021, 45,718 claims were started via the OIC. But is this a good number?
2020 data is, in this authors opinion, always going to be short of ‘normal’ usage due to the first covid lockdown. As such, let us look at the 2019 data from the claims portal which dealt with low-value PI claims prior to the OIC (and continues to do so where appropriate). It must be noted that the old claims portal was for claims up to £25,000 in value for RTA, whereas the OIC can only handle up to £5000 value claims. Therefore, take these comparisons with the appropriate pinch of salt.
In the same period (June – Aug) in 2019, the claims portal handled 178,288 RTA claims. So, in the same period two years later, the OIC handled only about 25% of the volume seen in 2019. Does this suggest perhaps that the system is not as easily accessed as hoped?
Speed
Even if the take-up for the new OIC portal is slow – is it offering better results in terms of speed to conclusion than the old system? According to the latest OIC data, of the 45,718 claims started, only 436 claims were settled. That’s less than 1% of all claims settled.
In the same time period in 2019, the claims portal saw 42,300 claims settled. That’s 23% of the total claims started in the same period. Of course, the portal has claims data going back far before June 2019, so it is possible that many of these claims that settled were put into the process before 31st May 2019.
If we go deep into the archives of the claims portal, we can see between May and July 2010 (the earliest data available) 96,783 claims were processed by the portal (not just RTA I should add), with 1,484 being settled in that same period. That’s just 2% of claims settled in the first three months. Perhaps then, the OIC is not far off what we might reasonably expect for such an infant process.
Encourage ‘self-managed’ claims
I could not find any data on the old claims portal about litigants in persons usage, so a comparison is omitted. However, other government data suggests that ‘specified money claims’ (which include lower value PI claims like those managed through the portal) between January and March 2021 saw about 30% of such claims feature either no legal representation (24%), or representation for the defendant only (5%).
In contrast, only 10% of users of the OIC were unrepresented. Suggesting perhaps the public has not flocked to the system to manage their own claim as may have been hoped. As awareness of the portal and processes increases however, this will likely go up.
Overall
I think it is too early to judge the OIC as a platform and process. The signs may look negative at first look, but when we investigate a little further, some numbers are not as bad as they initially appear. Still, the low usage compared to the claims portal suggests that either adoption is more difficult than thought, or another factor (claim limits?) is baring users from accessing the system. The low level of unrepresented claims is also not entirely unexpected, with ‘expert’ users such as solicitors and claims managers investing time and training well in advance of the systems launch. As public knowledge of the system increases, reason would suggest that 10% figure creeps up and up.
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