GUIDES TO MIB CLAIMS

The Law Society has just published the 10th edition of its excellent Guide to Motor Insurance Bureau Claims ISBN (978 1 907698 65 1) by Malcolm Johnson and Donald Williams, on sale for £39.95.  A bargain, if practitioners take into account the cost of missing one of the many procedural knock out clauses that are strewn throughout the Uninsured and Untraced Drivers Agreements.  It brings the case law up to date in this anomalous area of our national law provision for victims of motor users. 

The seminal APIL Guide to MIB Claims by Andrew Ritchie QC, published by Jordans (ISBN 987 1 84661 101) is also available.  This retails at £41.00 and last updated in 2008. 

I have no hesitation in recommending either work.

Hopefully, now that Under Secretary of State for Transport, Stephen Hammond MP, is in the driving seat and actively reviewing the MIB Agreements, he will respond to our calls to widen the remit of his patch and mend proposals and to do away with these unsatisfactory and unjust arrangements.

On 22 April this year I filed my detailed proposals for wide ranging reform of our national provision for guaranteeing the compensatory rights of motor vehicle victims.  I am glad to say that I have been joined by many in calling for three key changes:

• That Part IV of the Road Traffic Act 1988 should be revised so that a compulsory third party motor insurance policy should be good for any use, wherever the incident occurs in the UK, and that the cover extended to third party victims should be free from any breaches of policy term or any contractual restrictions or exclusions;

• That our statutory and extra statutory provision should conform to the minimum standards required under European Community law;

• That the extra statutory provision for victims of motor vehicle use should be codified in simple clear and just terms.

There is no need for our national law provision to be as complicated or obscure as it is and the many injustices are inexcusable; fresh thinking is required.  The minister’s consultation report, in July, is keenly awaited.