‘Hysterical’ insurers spent years under-compensating injured people while they should have been preparing for reform, Brett Dixon will tell delegates at the annual conference of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) tomorrow.
APIL’s incoming president will highlight the insurance industry’s overblown reaction to a change in the way compensation for life-changing injuries is calculated, following the Lord Chancellor’s change to the ‘discount rate’ earlier this year.
“While insurers should have been preparing for the reform which they knew was coming, many of them were resting on their laurels, reaping the benefits of a rate which was too low, while people with life-changing injuries were under-compensated,” he will say.
“Were there any stories about insurers going out of business because they could no longer make ends meet? Of course not. Was the idea that injured people are somehow responsible for the setting of premiums accepted by some opinion formers? Of course it was.”
Mr Dixon will call for fairness, accountability and the need to treat injured people with dignity, in his inaugural speech to APIL members.
“A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members,” he will say. “So we had all better sit up, take notice and try to be better, fairer human beings.”