Godfather of Soul James Brown once sang, “Stock market going up, jobs going down,” and he’s never been more right. Only it’s not the stock market going up, its car insurance in the UK. And it’s going up a lot. Twelve months ago, drivers were paying (on average) £633.55 to insure their cars. Now they’re £892.08 or forty percent more, and there was a similar 40% increase the year before and the year before that. Yet with accidents declining and the competition increasing more than ever before, premiums – you’d think – would be lower than ever.

So what gives? Well, insurance companies are making bigger payouts thanks to litigation. Litigation! Roughly 200 claims a year to be exact, executed by those nefarious, “no win, no fee” lawyer-types. And this is in the UK; a country that I’d have thought would have more sense than that. Fortunately, it seems some people in the UK do have more sense than that as British Parliament has finally woken up to this litigation bully.

A recent inquiry discovered that the insurance premium increase was caused mainly by:

“[A] rapid growth in the number of personal injury claims management firms, which are using direct cold-call marketing techniques to encourage people to make claims who otherwise would not have done so. [These claims are] for injuries that in fact, have not been suffered or which may not be as severe as claimed: typically mild soft-tissue damage causing pain in neck and shoulders (whiplash), which is difficult to medically diagnose.”

When exactly did the UK become the litigious stereotype so often associated with the United States? When did all those Britons’ brains fall out and their eyes glaze over? Worse still are the so-called, “cash for crash” individuals including one man who, for a fee of £500 a crash, caused 93 accidents over three years that cost the insurance companies as much as £12 million! Fortunately, this man and the owners of the company responsible for his cash-per-crash income are now rotting in jail.

More disturbing is a recent survey that found as many as 1 in 20 drivers under the age of 35 deliberately [sic] braked their cars, “in such a way as to cause the following motorist to collide with them, placing the responsibility for meeting the claim on the following driver.” As actress Kathy Bathes did quote in Stephen King’s Misery:

“What is wrong with all you people?! Have you all gone mad?!”

To me, this certainly seems to be the case and some motorists really need to grow up. Sure times are tough, but careless grabs for funds undue is ruining the lives and wallets of many other ordinary Britons.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Telegraph