UK is not the whiplash capital of Europe

16/05/2017
Author: Neil Seddon

A recent claim by insurance companies that the UK is the whiplash capital of Europe has been found to be based on unreliable data cherry picked to support the government’s reform agendas.

Ken Oliphant, professor of tort law at Bristol University, said the evidence has been misleadingly presented, with main evidence coming from a flawed study by the Comité Européen des Assurances (CEA) in 2004.

Professor Oliphant said the data actually showed that Italy had nearly 50% more whiplash claims than England and Wales in the period assessed, and that it had paid out almost twice as much in compensation. Claims in Switzerland cost 10 times as much as those in the UK, while the Netherlands, almost six times as much.

Professor Oliphant said that though there have been specific instances in which fraudulent whiplash claims have been exposed in the UK, “there is a lack of reliable evidence as to extent of the problems of fraud and exaggeration, and a corresponding concern that – as with the whiplash capital claim – unreliable data will be used as the basis of tendentious interventions in the public debate…..the majority of injured persons whose claims for compensation are entirely genuine.”

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