Compensation is for Accident Victims, Not Con Men

Where has the term 'compensation culture' come from? And does this mystical beast even exist?

Let's consider where it might have come from. It could well be the result of isolated stories such as the two mentioned below, reported by the media this year.

In July this year, the Daily Mail published a piece about West Derby Road in Liverpool, which was apparently the scene of no fewer than seven injuries that had all led to a compensation claim: four of which had been successful and three that were still in the pipeline. This is despite the fact that the pavement seems to be perfectly normal: 'between 10ft and 20ft wide, making any obstacles easy to avoid.'

The article then, however, went to list a succession of claims that had either been nipped in the bud at an early stage or that had been reversed and exposed as a sham through the result of a successful fraud prosecution.

Then we have Nathan Williams, a rather misguided and less-than-subtle individual who thought he would try and make a bit of money from no less than eight Greater London authorities, even though he lived in a £500,000 apartment in trendy Soho. In the event he was caught, successfully convicted, and got nothing.

What do we learn from these?

Firstly, that the 'compensation culture' is based on some sections of the media hyping up stories with little substance: the Liverpool story's sensationalism was diluted with the discussion, in the same article, of fraudulent claimants whose actions ensured they received nothing except community service orders.

Genuine accident victims are being given a bad name by conmen

If by 'compensation culture' what the media are actually describing is the notion that some unscrupulous individuals will try to defraud the system to make money for nothing, then they are right in as much as there are people who will try and fiddle any system that will reward them for little or no input.

It is hardly a national problem: these stories are few and far between and often they are resolved in favour of the innocent party, which in both of the above cases was the local authority and the taxpayer, so often championed by the Mail and other papers like it.

We should acknowledge, then, that in his report, no less than Lord Young himself admitted that the notion of a compensation culture is 'fuelled by perception' and not reality. 90% if the public, he says, think there is one.

Since when has public perception been as good as hard evidence? There is a danger, as research has shown, that as many as 80% of people who have had an accident would be uniwlling to claim compensation because they think it's somehow dishonest to do so.

The cases above demonstrate exactly what happens in these circumstances: if there is an inflated or untrue claim, then the clamant won't get anything. Around 60-70% of claims are filtered out at an early stage if it is not thought that they are worth pursuing.

So what the government really wants to do is to ban spurious claims and discourage opportunistic fraudsters from trying their luck when they have not even had an accident. We wholeheartedly agree.


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Richard Craig is a UK-based author who is pro-accident compensation