RTE finally calls out compo culture

Its interesting to note that culture can evolve in line with present day societal changes when it is financially beneficial to the purveyor of that culture.

I don't think I've ever had a "bad" tin of beans.

Kivaro wrote: »

Let's be clear ....... we are talking about RTE here.

Not to worry, RTE have made sure not to refer him as a Member of the Travelling Community in line with their unwritten policy of never doing so in negative stories.

Outside of that they are just reporting the goings on of a court case.

Paul Weller wrote: »

Why blame the people gleaming the cube so to speak..blame the system that allows this to happen over and over again..

Exactly, the rewards are too tempting for those who want to take advantage of every opportunity to bleed their neighbours.
For clarity, I'm referring to the legal profession who represent such claimants

Widdensushi wrote: »

It's more of an advertisement for it than calling it out, need money, look how easy it is, I don't see any of them charged or facing jail time, so no disencentive

They don’t hold any fear of going to prison so they can act contrary to normal society at every opportunity with no repercussions for doing so.

I’ve no fear that the solicitors in the case went in eyes wide open. The fact that they still took the cases is that more often than not win and get paid handsomely which is exactly what’s wrong with our legal system.

Regardless of what sector of society the claimants come from, there are no penalties for unfounded clsims. They literally have nothing to lose, and we wonder why our insurance industry is the joke of europe.....

“She dismissed their claims, awarded legal costs against them and refused to put a stay on the award of costs.“

Legal costs against them - I presume that means they are responsible for the insurance companies legal costs?

I know they will claim, despite all their previous compo payouts, that they don’t have the money but can the insurance company get their costs out of any future payment?

I presume they have to pay their own solicitor or else they don’t get paid.

I think the legal profession would be less likely to take on dodgy cases if costs were awarded in this manner.

The judge refused to put a stay on the award of costs - what does that mean?

MynamesColm wrote: »

Ethnic Minorities?

Compo Culture is a line insurance companies like to push out so they can blame "criminals" for increases in premiums, while also casting doubt over every legitimate claim they are forced to pay out on.

Last year in front of a Dail committee several insurance companies gave estimates about how many fraudulent claims they received each year, and were then questions on the specifics. They estimated 20% of claims were fraudulent (which would mean thousands of fraudulent claims each year). How many do they report to the gardai as suspected fraud? tens of cases.

FBD estimated they received 60000 claims in a year (by their estimate 15000 should have been fraudulent). Yet in a 6 month period, only 19 cases were reported to the Gardai.

Allianz Ireland, over the course of a year had reported 48 cases to the Gardai, against 5000 injury claims. (That's just less than 1%). The CEO said they had investigated suspected cases of fraud, but could only find evidence enough to report these suspected crimes to the Gardai in 48 cases.

Between 2013 and Summer 2019 Axa had reported 50 cases to the Gardai (which resulted in 13 prosecutions and 4 jail terms).


We mostly seem to hear about big payouts when they seem to be about trivial incidents, and then the "compo culture" line is trotted out. Insurance Companies love this narrative. It excuses them increasing premiums, and it makes honest people feel question themselves, doubtful, or feel guilty when they have legit claims to make.


It is nice to see criminals get caught.

If you knew anything about the insurance industry other than what Charlie Weston reports, you would know that proving fraudulent claims is nigh on impossible.

You are also taking the term fraudulent claims at face value.

Fraudulent claims are multifaceted.

There are the clear and obvious ones like the one in the OP from serial claimants. Or cases where engineers reports from accident scenes are inconsistent with claimants versions. Or the case a few months ago of a non national that had his case thrown out after being filmed by a private investigator. https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/conman-who-claims-serious-back-21378348

They are easy enough to identify and plough the required resources into and then ultimately report them to AGS when conspiracy to defraud is beyond reasonable doubt.

But what about cases where a legitimate accident did occur eg car A reverses into car B in a shopping centre car park. An accident happened, of that there is no doubt however when the occupants of car B bring an injury claim for soft tissue damage, PTSD and other ailments. How do you prove that these ailments are false? The impact was at less than 5km per hour so unless they are made of glass the injuries are highly unlikely to have occured, but "whiplash" is virtually impossible to prove or disprove.

Or cases where there was a crash on a road at say 20 or 30km per hour. Again, an accident has occured but when Mary from down the road is claiming life changing injuries on the back of it, how can the insurer prove beyond reasonable doubt that she is on the take?

Using the term fraudulent claims does a disservice to insurers at it automatically conjures up images like the OP. I personally prefer to refer to them as false and exaggerated claims rather than fraudulent as that in actuality is what many of them are.

The laws in this country are heavily skewed in favour of injured parties and generally, if a case goes before the courts the claimant will be paid out.

The only big winners in all this is the legal system.

On average, the level of compensation awarded for cases settled through the injuries board is virtually identical to litigated cases. The difference? 30% to 60% additional solicitors fees on top of the compensation award.

Until claims awards are re-calibrated to come inline with the rest of Europe and until people found to be making fraudulent penalties face real sanctions up to and including jail time, nothing, absolutely nothing will change.

Pronto63 wrote: »

The judge refused to put a stay on the award of costs - what does that mean?

Assume its that the claimants are liable to pay them immediately.

Good luck with getting anything out of them.

I hope the solicitor concerned put a huge amount of man hours into the case and now has a bloody nose as a result of it losing, might make them think twice about representing certain individuals in the future though i very much doubt it.

2,000 for everytime claiming bit of bad food.

I would be a Millionaire by now if I did:(:pac:

Skyrimaddict wrote: »

To be honest all, without the Boss bashing, its a culture of today that courts wont run these cases or insurance companies wont take to court.

One of my staff was in a crash two years ago. 45 euro worth of car damage, yes, seriously, and the lady who was hit is up to asking for I belive 65K in court. Apparently, a crash at 4 MPH where the damage was such the mechanics could only push out a dent and replace a bulb means this lady cant now have kids.

Absolutely 100%. Its easy to throw mud at travellers, non nationals, any other minority group but the reality is they are far from the biggest issues with false and exaggerated claims, many otherwise "upstanding" members of society are as likely to exaggerate their symptoms for a bigger payout. Anecdotally, i would be confident that alot of coaching goes on from the legal section when it comes to maximising potential claims.

silver2020 wrote: »

This is what is wrong with the system. A solicitor will take 100 cases, they will hope to win 65%.

That 65% in reality pay the costs of the losing 35%.

It like playing a golden guaranteed win slot machine - you will lose on some pulls, but when you win, you win big.

And the law society will do nothing

Another example of why self regulation is no regulation.

The same as the alcohol industry, gambling industry etc etc

El Gato De Negocios wrote: »

Absolutely 100%. Its easy to throw mud at travellers, non nationals, any other minority group but the reality is they are far from the biggest issues with false and exaggerated claims, many otherwise "upstanding" members of society are as likely to exaggerate their symptoms for a bigger payout. Anecdotally, i would be confident that alot of coaching goes on from the legal section when it comes to maximising potential claims.

Exactly, in my experience, it is every class creed and colour involved in insurance fraud. Examples range from the likes of "would you ever put a couple of new tyres on the car and build it in to the repair estimate" all the way to staged accidents

Getting big wins like this are important and it can help to keep a lid on fraud, but risk/reward is too high in Ireland. Even when an insurer is awarded costs, there is little chance of every recovering them. So, the money spent in securing a great result hits the bottom line and is passed on to the other policyholders

I know somebody who had a minor scrap/tip with somebody a few years ago.( I was in the car at the time) Honestly it felt like the mirror being pushed in.
Woman and unrestrained kid in the car.
We knew fairly fast who we were dealing with. Within minutes her husband was on the scene to pick up the damaged car in his pick up.

They wanted us to go to the bank and give them a few €1000’s.
Firstly we didn’t have the money and we wouldn’t have.
So, we said we’d sort them out with the repair bill.
She had our details and insurance details.
We contacted the insurance company to report the incident.
After a minute or two the fella said ‘’ Were these people travellers?’’

Monday lunch time rolls on the person checks their phone. They had about twenty missed calls from an angry woman shouting abuse saying she was being ignored. She had the contact details of the insurance company. She wanted cash in hand tough. She was firmly told to deal with the insurance company. She was also blown away with the fact somebody could be at work/college and couldn’t answer their phone.

Her kid ended up being withdrawn and she had anxiety and injuries. The kid had to rushed A&E that evening. She spoke to a nurse but they had no record of it.

When the insurance company looked at the cars. They found her car had being involved in about seven other minor collisions. I guess the others paid up. She also had a stream of bad luck in accdeints.