Not since Lindi St Clair was flushed out of Norman Lamont’s basement, has whiplashing been so much in the news. Now the ABI has come out with the extraordinary allegation that Britain is the whiplash capital of Europe. The insurer body claims that 1200 whiplash claims are made each day in this fair land of ours.
According to Insurance Times, the ABI has come to the shocking conclusion that “ambulance chasing lawyers and claims management firms, coupled with ‘crash for cash’ staged motor accidents” have actually increased “the risk of fraudulent claims.” A timely warning against complacency, if ever Bankstone News heard one!
The NHS apparently spends £8m a year treating whiplash injuries – many of which presumably exist purely in the minds (or the insurance claims) of those persons purporting to have sustained them.
Whiplash supposedly accounts for three quarters of all personal injury claims in the UK, a far higher proportion than in other European countries. But the ABI’s Jimmy “duellin’” Dalton is skeptical: “I doubt that the UK has some of the weakest necks in Europe,” he told a special whiplash-themed event this week.
We must have some of them, surely?
Now the ABI wants to crack down on whiplash fakers and encourage doctors to work out how to tell a real wince from a feigned one. “We seem ill-equipped,” Jim pontificated, “to effectively identify and treat whiplash,” (split infinitive, no such medical term), and must concentrate on “developing authoritative medical guidance on how to accurately diagnose and treat genuine whiplash” (ditto).
Good call, we say here at Bankstone news, with the same clueless fatuity we bring to phrases like “take a rain check,” “get to first base,” etc.
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