Whiplash portal delay would be a ‘political decision’ insists MIB chief

Pushing back the launch for the MIB’s litigation in person (LiP) portal would be a ”political decision”, chief executive Dominic Clayden told Insurance Times.

The introduction of the LiP portal is one facet of the Civil Liability Act, known colloquially within the industry as ”the whiplash reform”, part one of this litigation received Royal Assent in December 2018.

The portal aims to empower claimants to process their own personal injury claims online, up to a revised £5,000 limit, without the aid of a solicitor; this is an increase on the previous £1,000 small claims limit.

The portal is ready to go from a technical point of view, but there are outstanding issues that need to be resolved by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) before it can go live in April, Clayden said.

Firstly, the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC) rules need to be agreed and finalised; the statutory instruments for the personal injury tariff and raising the small track limit need to go through; and decisions around alternative dispute resolution mechanisms need to be made.

“We’re waiting for the decisions along with everyone else. We get the pencilled decisions, but these are subject to civil procedure rules committee or ministerial final decision.”

”The MoJ are the people who make those decisions. If they are made in accordance to what we’ve been given as design decisions, and they arrive before 6 April, the system is capable of going live,” Clayden said.

The LiP portal has been built in a series of three-week ‘sprints’. The site is now in its 17th sprint, which is the final development stage. 

Clayden said that if the MoJ changes any element of the sprints, it will take three weeks to carry out the testing and ”hardening’”(ironing out any IT glitches).

He added that were there to be any material changes at this point, he would be “uncomfortable to guarantee a stable platform that would work for people”.

”If this system falls over – that’s down to us. If people log on and it doesn’t work, that’s not MoJ’s fault. That’s part of the deal. I’m not going to scrimp on making sure that we’ve got proper testing. If there are material changes, we just have to accept that’s part of the deal.

”Our job is to be ready for when they want to pull the trigger, that’s on track. Over to you MoJ,” Clayden said.

Testing

The portal has been tested with SMEs, as well as the public. The MIB tasked polling company Ipsos Mori to create two focus groups. One group tested the portal remotely, and the other were spoken to face to face and asked questions.

The overall feedback was that people liked it, Clayden said. There were some elements that had to be changed though. One of those was the contrast on the screen colours, which didn’t work for some visually impaired people. This was subsequently changed. 

Another issue was the language. Some users struggled with terms well known within the industry, such as ”compensator”.

There was also concern that the site was not considered trustworthy, so the MoJ logo has been added and it will include links to the MoJ site and vice versa to improve visible authenticity.

Clayden said that the portal had also been tested by lawyer and insurance professionals.

Registrations

The MIB chief also provided an update on the registration of professional users on the portal.

As of the end of last week, 91 applications to be a professional user were submitted. Of those, 83 were claimant law firms while 8 were insurers, representing just over 10% of the insurance market.

Professional users are not professional users unless they are regulated by the PRA, SRA or FCA, said Clayden. This is aimed at closing the door to unregulated claims management firms.

Firms will need to provide their regulated number, which will be individually checked upon application.