Insurance Times Awards 2022: DWF Law provides ‘profitable support’ around somatic illness claims

Why did you want to enter the Legal Claims Partner of the Year category?

DWF Law entered the Legal Claims Partner of the Year category because we believe we have delivered outstanding, profitable support to our clients through our initiative around tackling somatic illness claims, which deal with chronic pain, functional neurological disorders and subtle brain injuries.

Over the last decade, DWF has tackled the substantial increase of claims presented initially as low value claims, which subsequently dramatically increase to high value claims with disproportionate costs. DWF set up a dedicated somatic illness team (SIT) to tackle this problem.

The SIT includes specialist lawyers and predictive profiling analysts, who devised a chronic pain identification toolkit - this identifies these types of claims at the earliest point, meaning we can tackle relevant claims with appropriate strategies.

What do you think makes your entry stand out or different from your competition?

DWF have uniquely:

• Used predictive and profiling analysts to slice and dice data to identify claimant solicitors’ adverse behaviours or cost building and layering tactics to incubate claims.
  
  
• Implemented a multidisciplinary approach – SIT comprises of legal experts and analysts to provide an all-encompassing strategy for tackling somatic claims.
  
  
• Pioneered a chronic pain toolkit.
  
  
• DWF Law’s trailblazing work ensured we routed somatic illness claims at the earliest point to the right claims handlers - this reduces waste and maximises operational efficiencies.
  
  
• Best in class results – we saved our clients £17.8m in 2020/2021.

What would winning this award mean to you and your firm?

It would be a fantastic endorsement of industry recognition for a unique initiative that affects all of DWF’s insurance clients and has saved millions of pounds.