Drivers are paying around £93 extra for the average motor insurance premium due to an increase in whiplash claims, a new report has revealed.
Insurer Aviva says the spike in claims has been driven by no-win no-fee law firms which advertise widely on daytime television and cold call crash victims.
Despite the Government’s efforts to tackle the compensation culture and bring down motor insurance costs, Aviva says further reforms are needed to reduce the number and cost of whiplash claims.
Whiplash claims cost motorists a total of £2.5 billion a year and Aviva’s research found that the UK is on track to bring more than 840,000 motor injury claims to the Claims Portal, which allows insurers to submit claims, for the year ending April 2015.
This represents a rise of nine per cent on the previous year, which equates to 2,300 claims every day.
Aviva analysed the motor injury claims it received in 2014 and found that 80 per cent included whiplash.
The average UK motor insurance premium is £372, but in France, where whiplash claims only make up three per cent of motor injury claims, premiums are around 40 per cent less than they are in the UK, Aviva said.
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