Following an FOI request from the Association of Consumer Support Organisations, the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) has published personal injury claims data for the first half of 2020.
Commenting on the data for January to June 2020, ACSO executive director Matthew Maxwell Scott said:
“Given Covid, it’s no surprise that there was a dramatic fall in the number of motor accident injury claims between April and June. The drop, by nearly 60,000, represents a 40% reduction on the previous quarter, and accelerates a long-term declining trend in the number of motor related claims registered with the CRU. These have fallen from nearly 830,000 in 2011-12 to just over 650,000 last year.”
On a year-on-year basis, motor injury claims between Jan-March 2020 (155,860) were on a par with the same period the previous year (156,791), while claims for April-June 2020 fell to 94,733 from 146,844 in April-June 2019, a 35% reduction year on year.
“Our expectation is that motor injury claims will start to rise again as people return to normal driving patterns after the lockdown, but the overall annual figures for 2020 will inevitably report another big fall in motor injury claims. This underlines our view that personal injury claims numbers cannot continue to be cited as the reason for increasing car insurance premiums.”
“The lockdown brought the whole sector together to ensure that injury claims continued to be settled during an extremely challenging period. ACSO and the ABI’s Statement of Intent enabled thousands of injured people to see their claims progress and to undergo remote treatment such as physiotherapy.”
“We hope the success of the Statement of Intent and other protocols will encourage further cooperation to improve the customer claims journey and help reduce costs. By continuing to work together the wider industry will also be able to resolve many of the outstanding problems with the small claims portal, the implementation of which has been delayed until at least April 2021.”
Turning to non-motor claims, Mr Maxwell Scott said that claims had fallen across the board between the first and second quarter of 2020, including clinical negligence (46% reduction), employer liability (25%) and public liability (29%). The total reduction in personal injury claims between Jan – March and April to the end of June was 37%, underlining “the unprecedented impact of the pandemic on the insurance claims sector,” said Maxwell Scott.
Volume of personal injury claims recorded by the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU)
| Liability Type | Clinical Negligence | Employer | Motor | Other | Public | Not Known | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan 18 – 30 Jun 18 | 8,978 | 42,151 | 326,699 | 5,036 | 47,950 | 1,209 | 432,023 |
| 1 Jul 18 – 30 Sep 18 | 4,483 | 22,375 | 159,417 | 1,804 | 21,290 | 616 | 209,985 |
| 1 Oct 18 – 31 Dec 18 | 3,944 | 23,517 | 181,261 | 1,848 | 23,247 | 737 | 234,554 |
| Total 2018 | 17,405 | 88,043 | 667,377 | 8,688 | 92,487 | 2,562 | 876,562 |
| 1 Jan 19 – 31 Mar 19 | 4,207 | 22,001 | 156,791 | 1,868 | 21,288 | 597 | 206,752 |
| 1 Apr 19 – 30 Jun 19 | 3,494 | 25,342 | 146,844 | 1,610 | 16,244 | 328 | 193,862 |
| 1 Jul 19 – 30 Sep 19 | 3,908 | 23,491 | 169,217 | 1,995 | 20,101 | 430 | 219,142 |
| 1 Oct 19 – 31 Dec 19 | 4,324 | 16,162 | 181,131 | 1,927 | 19,622 | 504 | 223,670 |
| Total 2019 | 15,933 | 86,996 | 653,983 | 7,400 | 77,255 | 1,859 | 843,426 |
| 1 Jan 20 – 31 Mar 20 | 4,119 | 14,032 | 155,860 | 1,554 | 16,620 | 393 | 192,578 |
| 1 Apr 20 – 30 Jun 20 | 2,217 | 10,531 | 94,973 | 1,076 | 11,778 | 351 | 120,926 |
| Total 2020 YTD | 6,336 | 24,563 | 250,833 | 2,603 | 28,398 | 744 | 313,504 |