The Official Injury Claims Portal

To be eligible to use the OIC the claimant must have been inside a motor vehicle (not on a cycle, or a pedestrian) and the value of the injuries should not exceed £5,000. The whole claim must also not exceed £10,000.00 inclusive of financial losses and is only applicable to incidents occurring on or after the 31^st May 2021.

The portal was created by the Motor Insurers Bureau, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, in an attempt to make the personal injury claims process “simple, secure and unbiased”, encouraging individuals to make claims independently.

It has now been a little over a year since the portal was launched, a good time period to now reflect on the changes that have been made and the continued impact of those changes. The changes not only reduced the amount of compensation on offer to Claimants, but also removed the ability to recover legal fees from the opponent (or their insurers) in many claims. The portal was designed for Claimants to bring their own claims, without the need for legal representatives – known as litigants in person.

However, the Official Injury Claims team data from the period of April to June of this year show that during this period nearly 71,000 claims were submitted to the portal, of which more than 90% were from a legally represented claimant, despite the portal being designed for litigants in person and the government aiming for a figure of 30% of claims being submitted by a litigant in person. The portal also set out to try and reduce timescales in the claims period through streamlining the process, latest data shows that claims within that portal are now taking almost six months on average to settle, despite the numbers of claims overall continuing to be at a historic low.

It is reported in the Law Gazette that there remains a large volume of cases which are difficult to settle, because they involve claims for whiplash (which is subject to a fixed compensation tariff), and claims for whiplash and other injuries, which are not subject to a fixed compensation tariff – and litigants in person are expected to navigate these issues themselves.

It has been pointed out by critics that the number of claims in the last quarter is significantly down with over 100,000 whiplash claims being registered with the Claims Recovery Unit during the same quarter of 2021. When the law is ever changing, reforms are being introduced, new portals are being launched with promises of faster, but lower compensatory turnarounds – you may wish to turn to a legal representative to help you navigate the claims process. Here at Pepperells, we have a team of Personal Injury Specialists who are familiar with the OIC portal, and indeed other claims portals, and will be able to help you claim for injuries in an accident that wasn’t your fault.