Jury is out on success of Piab in speeding up claims

People injured at work or on the roads have only themselves to blame - or at least that's how insurance underwriters and litigation-fearing employers would like it.

At the height of the Republic's so-called "compo culture", claims for personal injuries were, they implied, sometimes fraudulent, often trivial and always costly.

The victims of irresponsible motorists, employers and property owners had their own story to tell, one involving medical complications, continued loss of earnings and a variety of expenses not recoverable from any insurance policy.

To add insult to injury, people who decided to take their case to court had to wait six times longer than those in the UK for negotiations to even commence on their cases.

The Personal Injuries Assessment Board (Piab), in operation since last summer, has speeded things up a bit, at least for people whose claims are not disputed, from an average of over three years to a statutory limit of nine months.

Piab released details of its first awards last week. Of almost 8,000 cases now before the board, 25 offers have been made so far and 20 of these accepted.

The awards disclosed ranged from €9,000 for a worker whose finger got caught in a door to €60,000, plus expenses, for back injuries sustained in a workplace fall.

Piab says consumers will get the same amount of compensation from it as they would from the courts. But there is one important difference: the board will not give awards for solicitors' costs. Anyone who seeks legal advice will have to pay these fees out of their own pocket.

Much to the ire of the legal profession, Piab's raison d'être is to cut solicitors, and thus the troublesome matter of their fees, out of the equation.

Litigation costs add 46 per cent to the actual compensation figure, thus inflating the motor and liability insurance premiums consumers and businesses pay, according to Piab.

But Piab's desire for a lawyer-free zone suffered a setback in January, when the High Court ruled that Piab could not interfere in the lawyer-client relationship by refusing to deal with solicitors hired by claimants. Piab had corresponded directly with applicants and copied the correspondence to their solicitors, rather than recognising that the solicitor was acting on behalf of the client.

Piab is appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

According to Piab's chief executive, Patricia Byron, it is the choice of consumers to engage a solicitor, but for the 90 per cent of claims that are undisputed, it isn't strictly necessary.

"If they want to pay a solicitor to help them fill out the application form and post the medical assessment form, then they can," Byron says. But that's almost all the solicitor can do in a Piab case, she argues. "There are no pleadings, no hearings."

The Law Society, naturally, has a different take on affairs.

As every Piab assessment can be rejected by either the claimant or the respondent, every case has the potential to end up in court, the society's director general, Ken Murphy, points out. The details divulged to Piab on its application and medical assessment forms should therefore be overseen by a solicitor to ensure they do not contain anything that might later prejudice the claim.

"Legal representation is necessary to guarantee the rights of victims of accidents against the interests of big business and the insurance industry," according to Murphy. "It would be a very foolish claimant who would not use a solicitor in dealing with Piab."

Murphy also cites research produced by the lord chancellor's department in the UK that found that having a legal representative increased claimants' chances of success in social security appeals, mental health review tribunals and immigration hearings.

Of the five Piab offers that have been rejected to date, four were turned down by solicitors acting on behalf of claimants, presumably in the hope that they could do better in the courts.

But this could be a time-wasting exercise. "A solicitor would have to have very good foundation to advise their client to reject an award," says Byron. "If they do, the claim will be subject to litigation and it could be three or four years before they get their cheque, with no guarantee that they would get any more than what we had offered them."

With an 80 per cent acceptance rate of its awards, Byron is confident that the board is getting it right.

On average, the awards were accepted within 15 days, well within the time limits for both respondents and claimants. And 11 of the 20 people who accepted the awards were advised to do so by their solicitors, she adds.

Claimants who want help filling out their application form can also contact Piab for assistance, while employees involved in industrial accidents can seek advice from union officials.

"For ordinary people who wouldn't be used to officialdom, the forms can be daunting," says Sylvester Cronin, safety adviser for the Republic's largest trade union, Siptu. Cronin is concerned that there is no financial assistance available to vulnerable applicants.

Unions such as Siptu often provide free legal services to members who are injured at work. But because the courts awarded legal costs if claimants were successful, unions only had to cough up in the event the claimant lost.

Now "win, lose or draw", either the claimant or their union will have to pay at least some legal fees, notes Cronin. However, he believes it is too early to say whether Piab will be good for employees or not. "The jury's out, so to speak."

Hundreds more awards are due to be offered in the next few weeks, according to Piab. Indeed, the board must make over 500 offers by June if it is to keep within its nine-month limit.

The Law Society is sceptical and believes that Piab may activate a provision within the legislation that allows it to extend the time limits for making an assessment by a further six months. A 15-month period for assessing claims will become the norm, the society says.

According to Byron, however, Piab will only extend the time limits in exceptional cases, for example where the full extent of the injury has not become clear within the first few months and independent medical examinations are later required.

In these situations, the Law Society argues that 15 months might not be long enough to accurately assess a claim. Cases involving severe scarring are not suitable for the Piab process because the injury does not stabilise until 18 months after the initial accident, according to the society.

For the majority of cases that are straightforward, Piab demystifies and accelerates the personal injuries claims process, according to Byron.

"The most important message that we want to get out to the consumer is that there is an independent State body out there to facilitate their claims, that there's just a €50 nominal fee and that we will help them fill out their application."