New RTA claims process delayed within weeks of introduction date

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 7:55 am

The new RTA claims process has been delayed by the UK government amid fears that the IT system crucial to its success would not be up to the job.

The Ministry of Justice has forced through changes to the way road traffic accident claims with injury damages worth between £1,000-£10,000 are to be dealt with. The principle change is that personal injury solicitors and motor insurers will communicate via a government backed website, rather than the usual method of letters, faxes, phone calls and e-mails.

Originally slated to commence on 6 April 2010, the government recently announced that its introduction would be delayed until 30 April 2010 to allow those involved extra time to prepare for the changes. In particular, motor insurers and no win no fee solicitors were concerned that they would not be able to develop their own computer systems to adapt to the government backed system in time. Although the website is now available for testing, it is still being developed by the government’s developers and has suffered numerous problems, including ‘crashes’ on occasion.

Stephen Higham, a partner at leading personal injury solicitors David Phillips & Partners explains, ‘our own computer system is extremely complex and designed to deal with road traffic accident claims as efficiently as possible. The new claims process is very different as it requires an interface between our system and the government’s. This has required a complete and expensive re-design. We are working with our developers around the clock to be ready, but I still don’t know if the short delay is going to give us enough time.’

He continues, ‘my main concern is for those injured in road traffic accidents who may suffer delays due to the failure of the government to allow sufficient time to develop the system fully. As I understand it, the motor insurers, who were lobbying hard for these changes, are now getting ‘cold feet’ to the extent that some may not work within the process at all.’

The Ministry of Justice has insisted that the changes will be brought in on 30 April 2010 even if those involved, including their own software developers, are not ready. It remains to be seen if this will be another expensive and embarrassing mistake in an election year.