Can you dig it? Britain’s £3m pothole compo crisis

Potholes are a massive difficulty for motorists and nearby authorities alike.

Not only do they price motorists and councils millions of pounds in repair bills, the RAC Foundation says councils paid out a lot more than £3 million in compensation in the last monetary year.

Claims up, payments down

A total of 48,664 claims for pothole harm were produced in 2013/14, which is an improve of 2,525 on the number of claims made in 2012/13.

And despite the fact that just below a quarter (23%) of claims have been actually upheld, this nevertheless came at a price of £3.2 million to regional authorities.

Even so, although the number of claims improved, the quantity paid out by neighborhood councils actually fell by £1million as the average pay-out for pothole damage dropped from £357 in 2012/13 to £286 in 2013/14.

The typical admin price for a claim, whether successful or not, also dropped from £150 to £147.

Here’s how the figures for 2013/14 break down (2012/13 figures are in brackets)

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It’s unlikely that claim rates reflect the true scale of the difficulty as numerous motorists will be reluctant to make a claim due to the laborious claims process and the comparatively low good results rates.

Some may possibly not even be aware they can claim against their nearby authority. And some issues caused by potholes – either in one go or gradually more than a series of incidents – might be interpreted as standard wear-and-tear or routine structural harm.

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “These figures are probably to be the tip of the iceberg. Many drivers will be put off by the time involved in claiming against a council, and several councils do their very best to deter claimants coming forward.

“But the fundamental difficulty lies not at the doors of our town halls but with central government. In spite of occasional 1-off grants associated to periods of harsh climate, they are just not providing councils adequate funds to hold their road ne2rks up to scratch.”

He added: “In England, local authorities themselves estimate the upkeep backlog to be about £12 billion yet more than the past 5 years spending on roads in genuine terms has dropped 22% across England and Wales.

“Worn-out road surfaces do not basically result in damage to cars they are also potentially lethal, specifically for 2-wheeled road users.”

How to report a pothole

While we can not do anything to reduce the amount of red tape involved in generating a claim for pothole harm, we have teamed up with Street Repairs to make the process of reporting a pothole a lot easier.

Simply fill in the form under and your local authority will be in a position to add the pothole to its list.

And with the pothole reported, you can then go about generating a claim, so make confident you read How to make a claim for pothole damage.

Can you dig it? Britain’s £3m pothole compo crisis

Compo culture: Has the pendulum swung also far?

We’ve written lots about efforts by insurers, the government and the police to crackdown on insurance coverage fraud.

According to the Association of British Insurers, fraud is adding £50 a year to the price of automobile insurance coverage. Only this week, a group of guys from Merseyside had been jailed for their component in a scam designed to defraud insurer LV= of £500,000.

Unintended consequences

But has the welter of adverse coverage of fake and exaggerated claims really started to act as a deterrent for those who do actually have a valid case?

We asked John Baden-Daintree, director of legal solutions at Top quality Solicitors, to give us his thoughts…

Is Britain’s so-named compensation culture placing genuine accident victims off creating a claim?

We’ve heard it frequently adequate: “Britain has a expanding compensation culture with people increasingly creating dodgy claims for accidents and pushing up the price of everyone’s insurance”.

As a solicitor specialising in private injury claims, I hear this line far more than most – in reality, quite a lot anytime I inform anybody what I do for a living!

But whilst it is unarguably a single of those topics that tends to get men and women hot below the collar, I question how a lot these views reflect reality.

Official statistics

The government keeps a record of every injury claim made. Looking at road visitors accidents especially, far from showing that the number of claimants are spiraling out of manage, official government stats show they’re actually falling.

Road site visitors crash claims are down 6.7% since 2011. On prime of that, successive government critiques, like Professor Lofstead’s current assessment of Well being & Security, have discovered absolutely no proof of a compensation culture in Britain today.

The other area exactly where reality does not match preconceptions is more than scams such as crash for money. Freedom of info requests to the UK’s police forces uncovered only 2 such investigations in the final 3 years.

Vulture culture?

But misconceptions persist. Our research shows that a shocking 88% of us think there’s one thing of a ‘compensation culture’ in Britain nowadays.

Sadly this has resulted in a lot of innocent accident victims not pursuing a claim since they ‘don’t want to make a fuss’ (43%).

A third (32%) say they didn’t want to fuel a compensation culture and a additional 13% didn’t want to claim back their losses in case others thought badly of them.

I know of a quantity of folks who have not claimed back their losses simply because they worry about how others will perceive them. But the cost of not creating a claim can be high: on typical, people are left £1,178 out of pocket, which can leave men and women in debt.

Typical losses include things like loss of revenue, healthcare expenses, additional childcare or even sensible issues such as having to go by taxi due to the fact of being unable to drive.

Moreover they are missing out on the injury compensation they are entitled to receive. 

John Baden-Daintree

Suspicious minds

The culture of suspicion that surrounds individual injury claims is also unhelpful to efforts to bring higher transparency to this complete location.

For example, our study on perceptions of individual injury has shown that 43% of people think private injury victims spend their compensation on a household holiday, with 42% believing victims go on a purchasing spree.

Our analysis also shows that only 19% think the funds is employed to get individuals back into the position they have been in ahead of their injury.

This is why we advise you use a solicitor to help you make a productive individual injury claim while avoiding outdated perceptions of the individual injury claims culture, typically held by these fortunate sufficient to have never ever been in that position.

Surely truthful, difficult-operating individuals shouldn’t miss out on the financial compensation they want to get their lives back on track since they are worried that other folks will feel badly of them?

What do you believe? Is insurance fraud as serious a difficulty as we’re led to feel? And would you ever be place off from generating a legitimate claim? Let is know…

Compo culture: Has the pendulum swung also far?