A driver who refused to see a doctor to back up a spurious whiplash claim is now being pursued for £1,100 by ambulance-chasing lawyers.
Andrew Hopper has been threatened with court action and debt collectors after pulling out of a personal injury claim, because he felt it would be dishonest.
Bogus whiplash cases are estimated to cost insurers as much as £2 billion per year — adding around £90 to the insurance premium of every driver in the UK.
Mr Hopper, 52, was involved in a minor shunt in July 2010.
His ten-year-old Saab was dented after being hit by a car from behind while he waited at a busy roundabout near his home in Ilminster, Somerset.
The two drivers exchanged personal details. Mr Hopper’s neck felt stiff for a while after, but he thought no more of it.
As a keen rugby player, he was used to picking up injuries and carrying on as normal.
However, in the days following the accident, Mr Hopper started receiving calls from claims management companies.
These are often made from overseas call centres which get their hands on the details of people involved in accidents.
Mr Hopper has no idea how the firms got his phone number — but assumes it must have come either from a garage, a broker or an insurer.
The claims managers represent no-win, no-fee lawyers who chase insurers for compensation following an accident.
This is a lucrative business with lawyers pocketing up to a third of any compensation won.
Initially, Mr Hopper was polite and asked the firms to stop calling. When they didn’t he would hang up.
But this didn’t stem the nuisance calls. Sometimes there were several a day for months.
Then, in November 2011, he finally cracked. In the midst of juggling money worries and difficult personal matters, the claims caller had a killer line for him: ‘Sir, there’s £3,000 with your name on it.’
Instead of giving him the usual dismissal, Mr Hopper paused for a moment — and found himself tempted.
He says: ‘I’m not proud of it because I buckled, but it was a brilliant whiplash sales pitch from the claims guy and I could not say no to him.
‘I tried to put up the usual barriers — pointing out my rugby injuries meant I would be robust enough not to suffer, but he turned it round.
‘He said that because of my rugby, I probably wouldn’t be aware of it, and that it could be worse than I imagined.’
‘I’m ashamed to admit it but I gave in and thought the money would come in handy. I could sort out the carpets and pay for a bit of decorating. It would really take the pressure off.’
And so Mr Hopper agreed to begin the claims process, and finally described the pain in his neck.
Whiplash occurs when your head is unexpectedly moved very swiftly in one direction. This hurts ligaments and damages neck tendons and is not unusual on impact during a car crash.
Medical professionals say it is very difficult to spot — and doctors usually need to depend on their patient’s own description of their symptoms to make a diagnosis.
The claims firm passed his details to Blackpool-based solicitors Roland Robinsons and Fentons.
No-win, no-fee lawyers such as this can pay claims companies up to £500 for passing on the personal details of people injured in car accidents, although there is no evidence that this particular firm has done so.
In January, Mr Hopper says he was contacted by a GP surgery asking him to attend a medical in respect of the claim.
At this point, any lingering stiffness in his neck was long gone. Mr Hopper’s conscience kicked in. He would not lie to a doctor, so he pulled out of the claim before his appointment.
He told the law firm he no longer wished to pursue the claim. They sent him a letter saying that as he had discontinued the court action, he was liable for their costs, which amounted to £1,140.
Mr Hopper says: ‘I was coerced by a skilled, very plausible individual to bring a whiplash claim. I succumbed to their promises in a weak moment. When I fully reflected that I probably didn’t have any effects of whiplash, I refused to go along with it and decided to tell the truth.
‘But I have fallen foul of a rotten claims culture which does nothing to rectify its wrongs. I have been stitched up and could be royally ripped off by a sordid, disreputable process.’
Mr Hopper has complained to the Legal Ombudsman, but has now been summoned to a court hearing and faces huge financial difficulty to rid himself of the demands for payment.
Jonathan Silverman, partner at consumer law firm Silverman Sherliker, says: ‘A contract is legally binding. But there could be an argument that Mr Hopper was subject to either pressure selling or even misrepresentation by the salesman.’
Millions are hounded everyday by bogus claims for mis-selling of payment protection insurance.
For anyone who has been in a car accident, the nuisance callers are from claims companies trying to coerce them to make a personal injury claim — usually for whiplash.
According to government research, these bogus insurance claims add £90 to car insurance premiums.
Britain has been nicknamed the whiplash capital of Europe, with insurers receiving 1,200 claims a day — twice the level in other European countries.
Between 2005 and 2010, the number of accident injury claims rocketed 70 per cent to 567,000, despite road accidents falling by nearly a quarter.
The driver must see a GP to get a diagnosis of whiplash to support the case.
Since whiplash is quite difficult to prove, the word of the individual is often enough during a GP’s consultation to get pain relief drugs as proof of suffering.
Finally, the insurer pays up, unwilling to fight a doctor’s note as it will involve more expensive tests and trials.
Mr Hopper is the latest to be caught up in the dark side of the claims culture, but his belated stand has led him into dire financial straits.
Since he signed a ‘no-win, no-fee’ document, he is bound by contract law to pay for the services provided by his solicitor.
He is contesting the £1,140 bill and has asked for a breakdown of the costs.
He will also argue he was unfairly pressed into taking up his claim.
A spokesman for Roland Robinsons and Fentons solicitors said it would not comment on a case which was the subject of court proceedings and refused to answer any questions about what had happened.
Malcolm Tarling, spokesman for the Association of British Insurers, says: ‘Whiplash claims seem to be a cottage industry in this country. We want to make it harder for somebody who hasn’t been injured in an accident to bring a dishonest claim.
‘At the moment, it’s too easy to bring a fraudulent claim.’
source: dailymail.co.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-2191670/Driver-sued-refused-make-whiplash-claim.html#ixzz24GqaN93L
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