INSURERS TOLD TO SET THEIR HOUSE IN ORDER, AHEAD OF
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE

As MPs prepare for another debate on the cost of motor insurance tonight  a national campaign
group has called on the insurance industry to set its house in order.

Not-for-profit Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL)
has called for clarity in the insurance market and has challenged the insurance
industry to end its unwarranted and prolonged assault on injured people.

“Let’s remember what insurance is for in the first place,”
said APIL president David Bott. “Its purpose is to ensure that people who are
injured by motorists can claim the compensation needed to put their lives back
on course.

“Of course that costs money. Injuring people needlessly does
cost money and when compensation needs to be paid it is entirely wrong for the
insurance industry to deflect attention from its own shortcomings by blaming
claimants for costing them money, just because they’ve happened to be injured.

“Motor insurers have enjoyed a captive market for decades,
yet their inability properly to price their risks means they are now forcing
consumers to pay the price for years of underwriting losses.

At a time when legal fees have been slashed through a new
electronic system of dealing with motor claims, car insurance premiums have
increased by almost a third,” he went on.

“And, with the Government now planning to ban referral fees,
insurers will lose another major source of income, and I fear this could result
in premiums rising even higher.

“There are ways of cutting costs without attacking injured
people, and insurers need to look closer to home to see what can be done.”