Undeterred by rumours that Jimmy ‘Duelin’ Dalton, Director of GIP at the Association of Brutish Insurers, is not in fact the true and rightful heir to the nuts and seeds empire founded by groundnut magnate Percy “P-Nut” Dalton – but in reality some kind of colonial imposter – Bankstone News is always delighted to hear from JD, where and whenever he chooses to put his handsome silvery head above the news media parapet.

Jim’s comely bonce popped up again just the other day to voice the ABI’s vigorous dissent from a recent Funday Times front cover story which accused motor insurers of pocketing the proceeds from HMG’s War on Whiplash while heartlessly inflicting higher and higher premiums on its long-suffering customers.

In a scathing indictment of coverage in the both the aforementioned Funday Times and The Fun (another title owner by wizened antipodiean super-tycoon Rupert Murder, Jim branded reports that insurance companies are minting it while punters fork out in spades for their motor cover “alarmist” and “misleading”.

The blame for rising motor insurance prices, the Jimster insisted, lies squarely with everyone but so-called greedy motor insurers: a category of person he contended that is purely figmentary, with no actual basis in factual reality.

Abandoning their clear duty to support and uphold a great British industry, Times reporters had simply lapped up nonsensical extrapolations from industry figures fed to them by sinister and powerful pressure groups like the Association of Predatory Injustice Liars or Apple as it chooses, for some reason, to be known.

The paper claimed that “Premiums have jumped by as much as a fifth in the past 12 months alone — adding about £115 to bills – even though a government crackdown on the no-win, no-fee industry has led to a drop in whiplash claims.”

Its justification for this outrageous claim: a gross distortion of ABI figures indicating that “the number of motor-related personal injury claims fell from 365,000 in 2013, to 342,000 both in 2014 and last year,” while “the overall cost to the insurance industry of these claims has dropped from more than £4.1 billion in 2013 to £3.6 billion last year.”

Having approached the ABI for comment, the Times mischievously reported that the insurer body had argued that, if anything, insurers had passed on too much (£1.1 billion) in the way of whiplash savings to its policyholders, having initially got a bit overexcited and prematurely competed the hell out of one another before WoW dividends had worked their way through the system.

The paper quoted Jimbo’s less media savvy colleague Rob Cunnings insisting that “Those initial savings that were passed on were overpriced and the market is now trying to rectify itself.” So, rather than facing accusations of “cheating” policyholders, motor insurers in fact deserve our sympathy and understanding for the indignity they’ve experienced being exposed, so publicly, in the act of self-rectification.

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