Insurance Industry 6, Legal Profession 0

Rarely – indeed, possibly never – has the insurance industry emerged so triumphant from discussions with government. It has certainly never so comprehensively trounced the legal profession as it did last week at the 10 Downing Street summit on whiplash claims and rising motor insurance costs.

The six point plan drawn up at the end of the meeting was that drawn up by the Association of British Insurers, making no concessions to the legal, and especially the claimant, perspective. The ABI and the major insurers present at the meeting have been admirably restrained but they must be cock-a-hoop at the progress they made in their one hour with the Prime Minister. There are aspects of the agreement that place obligations on insurers but they expected that and those commitments around developing telematics, young drivers and fighting more claims have been drawn up in a way that the insurance industry will be comfortable with. It will prove a game changer as I predicted in the run-up to the meeting.

Of course, the legal lobby is reeling from this huge snub and several commentators have already highlighted the extent of the humiliation this represents for the Law Society and the other lobbying groups within the legal profession. Quite simply, in Mr Cameron's eyes lawyers have become part of the problem and have therefore forfieted the right to be consulted on the solution. This is very much part of Mr Cameron's style. We have seen it today with the exclusion of major organisations including the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing from the Downing Street summit on the NHS reforms. the Prime Minister is getting impatient on several fronts and is only interested in talking to people he believes can take the policies he supports forward.

I'll freely admit that I am no great fan of claimant lawyers as a group. There are many who do a fine job in representing vulnerable people with geniune claims against large institutions and vested interests but, as a group, they have allowed themselves to become too closely associated with ambulance chasing, with persuading people to make claims when they originally had no intention of doing so and of exploiting the greater awareness of health and safety for all it is worth and to the detriment of society as a whole. That image has now cost them dear and will continue to do so unless they wake up to the problem.

That said, I don't think it is very clever of the Prime Minister to have these one-sided summits on any issue. I believe that you usually end up with better legislation if you listen to all parties. This doesn't always mean you make alot of changes: sometimes just by involving so-called opponnets in shaping a solution they come to share that solution.

20 Feb 2012