A few weeks ago I wrote about the
remarkable case of my claimant client with moderately serious orthopaedic
injuries directed by insurers to the distant and grubby premises of their “expert
witness” – a botox injector, who eventually confessed that he hadn’t a clue.[1]
The case has settled now after a
few more exchanges of correspondence but not until after client received further
strange telephone calls from a withheld number – a nameless somebody wanting to
arrange another medical examination, this time even further away in
Gloucestershire.
Our man is reasonably sanguine
but others would be justifiably anxious to know who has what information about
them and what they are doing with it.
Insurers do what they like, of
course, as the widespread sale of policyholders' data to claims farmers has
demonstrated. I wonder incidentally when we can expect to see action by the
Information Commissioner’s Office which has been levying substantial penalties
on local councils and NHS trusts recently.[2]
The key point here seems to be
that resistance crumbled after we latched onto the fact that insurers were
actively steering this perfectly genuine and deserving claimant to an ‘expert’
who probably had no more qualification for the job than that he would say
whatever insurers wanted him to say in return for not very much money.
Had any report from this guy seen
the light of day it would not have been challenged at latest until trial by most
‘self-representing’ victims, or those using the monkeys that the insurance
industry wants to force upon claimants one way or another.
As it is, insurers paid almost twice the five-figure sum
they previously offered.
QED.
