Whiplash portal reforms delayed

Authors / contacts: Ian Davies, Roger Davis, Alan Collins.

02-03-20

The UK government has confirmed that the implementation of its proposed ‘whiplash portal’ will be pushed back to 1 August this year – a move that confirms Kennedys’ long held belief that the reforms would need to be delayed.

Two days prior to the 2019 General Election Kennedys questioned whether the Whiplash Reforms were dead, dying or dormant. Since then however, a significant Conservative majority and an indication from the Ministry of Justice of their continued commitment to the reforms should have led to the personal injury portal going live in April.

Despite the repeated mantra from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau that the build of the online portal (named Official Injury Claim) was on track, the reality of having in place the necessary legal framework has lessened with each passing day.

While the portal system is ready it must have been built on a series of assumptions, given the absence of the rules. The lack of rules was a major issue for claimant, defendant insurer and defendant lawyers alike. The delay now allows all sides to prepare for the implementation with a semblance of order, assuming that the rules are released shortly.

One portal that isn’t subject to delay is our own Portal Manager, which was launched earlier this month.

One of the six smart tools on our revolutionary IQ Platform, Portal Manager is an easy-to-use dashboard and generates real-time information about the claims an insurer has in the Ministry of Justice Claims Portal at any one time.

By extracting live information from the Claims Portal, Portal Manager provides complete visibility on how many claims an insurer has in the Portal. The tools also provides in-depth and real-time insights on how long each stage in the claims process is taking, which claims are falling out of the process – or are close to falling out – and leakage points. Kennedys is the first law firm to integrate with the Claims Portal in this way.

Portal Manager also provides live information on claimant firms’ activities, allowing insurers to identify trends, and can also assess the performance of claims handlers. The tool seamlessly integrates with all of our innovations, including our award-winning KLAiM tool and our artificial intelligence-based fraud detection products, some of which have been developed with the University of Manchester as part of our Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

Find out more about Portal Manager.

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