The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is introducing a fast track process for road traffic personal injury claims, valued between £1,000 to £10,000 arising from accidents occurring on or after 30 April 2010 in England and Wales.

The new process will complete a widely-known programme of reform which was launched by the MoJ back in 2007. The fast track process aims to settle low value road traffic personal injury claims quickly and reduce solicitor costs.

The major changes to the process are that claims information will be shared electronically, liability decisions should be made within 15 days as opposed to 90 under the present protocol, and that legal costs will be fixed and recoverable on a staged basis.

How it will affect us

We estimate the fast track process will affect 85% of motor personal injury claims, mainly whiplash incidents. Consequently, the new process will greatly affect the way in which we handle a large proportion of claims.

Your help is required

It is now increasingly important for us to receive prompt notification of road accidents and we require your help to ensure the fast track process is effective. Our aim is to identify liability enquiries and complete them in anticipation that a third party injury claim is likely to be received via the MoJ process.

We know it will not be possible to approach every claim in the same way, but wherever possible we need your co-operation with the following:

• If liability appears straightforward that we can go ahead and admit liability without contacting you or your client first. We do however understand this may sometimes cause you difficulty, and hope we can develop mutually acceptable working relationships.

• If enquires are needed, that we can contact the client/driver direct, with your agreement.

• If you wish to be involved with enquires, that you will come back to us quickly by phone or email, comfortably within the time scale facing us (we will let you know in each case when we are approaching a deadline).

• That we might go ahead in some cases and concede liability within 15 days, without further contact, if we have not had a response to our enquiries. Again, we recognise the need to work with you on this.

• In cases where we have been unable to obtain a report from our client but are nevertheless RTA insurer, that we will sometimes admit liability if our client appears clearly liable. At the same time, we will confirm the position to you, regarding the efforts we have been making.

• In cases where we need to reserve our position for issues such as non-disclosure, that we will sometimes proceed as ‘Act Insurer’ without delay, as it will be in everyone’s interest to keep the third party claim within the MoJ process.

In most instances the Motor Insurance Database (MID) will be used to identify the relevant insurer.  It is therefore crucial that vehicle additions and deletions are notified on a timely and accurate basis.

Guidance for clients

The fast track process consists of three stages that insurers have to follow. To assist your clients understanding of the new process we have produced a guide to the fast track process.

Click here to download the client guide to the fast track process.

If you require further information please contact your Claims Handling Centre.

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