Every day we let our children, the elderly and vulnerable, out into an environment where there are significant numbers of the population (including children, the elderly and vulnerable), roaming the streets in possession of deadly weapons, and yet few of us bat an eyelid, until of course, we, or one of our loved ones are killed or injured.

There are an average of 5 deaths per day, 80 serious injuries and countless minor injuries or, to put it another way, every 17 minutes someone is either killed or seriously injured[1] .

Why is there no national outcry about this? Well, because the lethal weapons in question are vehicles …. motorbikes, cars, vans, lorries and buses, and it would seem that the deaths and injuries are the price that society is willing to pay for the convenience of driving.

However, part of that social contract is an understanding that we have a justice system, aligned with an insurance system, that sees those injured properly recompensed, financially, for their injuries, or in the case of fatalities, that loved ones are properly compensated, to the extent that money can ever fill the hole left.

As a lawyer acting on behalf of injured people for over 30 years, I fear that this social contract is close to breaking point. Years of government cuts have left the justice system creaking badly. Court buildings are falling down, court offices are understaffed and there are not enough judges to hear the cases. An injury case is now taking twice as long to make its way through the court process to trial than it was pre-pandemic.

At the same time, the insurance industry continues to peddle the lie that injury cases are the cause of rising premiums. So successful have the insurers been, that in 2021 the “whiplash reforms” came into force, slashing the amount of compensation victims can recover for these painful and debilitating injuries, and because of the way these cases are funded, resulting in a drastic reduction of claims made. In 2023 the number of injury claims made were nearly 30% lower than they were before the reforms were introduced.

One of the main factors behind the then conservative government’s willingness to adopt the reforms suggested by the insurers was concerns about the rising cost of insurance premiums. The government were persuaded that this was an “easy win” to put more money into drivers pockets. The truth is that since the reforms were introduced the price of car insurance has increased by 90% according to data from the Office for National Statistics. In 2023 profits for the top five motor insurers increased by 53%.

I am a business owner, I understand that in order to function, companies need to make a profit, insurers as well. But, they need to remember that their sole function is not profit – their income comes from people seeking a service. If the service is not provided, then people will stop buying. Unfortunately for the consumer, motor insurance is compulsory, making it a skewed market as we have to buy it from somewhere. Where the big five motor insurers go, the smaller companies are bound to follow.

The big five are multi-national corporations, they have a lot of resource at their fingertips to spend persuading governments that they would rather not have the bother of motor insurance (other insurance is more profitable), that they make no money from it and they are thinking of pulling out of the market if more concessions are not made.

Individual victims of road accidents have little power to counter this forceful lobbying. As claimant lawyers we do our best on behalf of injured people through groups like the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and Motor Accidents Solicitors Society (MASS) but those voices are small and tainted with arguments of self-interest, in comparison to the likes of Admiral, Axa, Aviva and Direct Line.

Meanwhile the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) estimates that there are an average of 300,000 vehicles per day on Britain’s roads which are uninsured, which is perhaps a reflection on the increasing costs of motor insurance[2] .

If insurers are paying claims for injuries, that impact on their profits, then they are incentivised to reduce the number of claims made. Whilst most recently this has manifested in the whiplash reforms it is far better when insurers are investing in making driving safer, firstly to avoid accidents in the first place and secondly to reduce the level of injuries when accidents do happen. The government should be looking to the insurers to support and invest in crash testing, improvements to highway infrastructure and public information campaigns. They can afford it!

If you have suffered an injury in a road traffic accident, please contact our team at Switalskis who can help. Call us on 01302 320621 or email help@switalskis.com

[1] Brake: the road safety charity

[2] “Shocking Levels of uninsured vehicle on UK roads” MIB 20 June 2024.