At APIL’s 2019 annual conference I attended Dominic
Clayden’s update on the latest developments within the Motor Insurance Bureau
and the new IT platform it is developing to handle personal injury claims by
unrepresented members of the public.
After hearing the Motor Insurers Bureau’s new CEO declare
that the MIB was the Ministry of Justice’s delivery partner for developing the
new portal and on viewing his impressive powerpoint organisational schema that
reveals the impressive range and variety of different public services it
discharges on behalf of the government, I expressed puzzlement that the MIB still
denies its status as an emanation of the state in the ongoing appeal in Lewis v Tindale & MIB. The appeal was heard last week.
I suggested that the MIB has become a mini-ministry
responsible for a significant proportion of the Department for Transport and Ministry
of Justice’s responsibilities imposed under the European Motor Insurance
Directives. I invited him to consider
reforming the constitution of this motor insurer consortium, given its
important public service role. I
suggested that it should co-opt onto its board certain special interest groups,
such as RoadPeace, and to make the organisation more open and accountable to
the general public, who fund its operations through their insurance premiums.
I was not surprised that Dominic Clayden should reject my
suggestion out of hand. However, I was
surprised by the lame excuse he gave. He
claimed that its governance was its own private concern and that if claimants
choose to use its services or not then that was a matter of choice for
them. This is as obviously wrong as it
is disingenuous.
One may choose to go shopping to one of several stores;
claimants do not choose to be injured by another’s negligence, nor does the
invocation of their legal entitlement to compensation by the only legally recognised
route to redress amount to a question of choice; it is a matter of compulsion; not free
choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment