INTRODUCTION
Fraud comes in many forms in PI and clin neg cases. For RTA claims, motor insurers have given evidence to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee that they estimate £2 billion pa is lost to fraud each year. In 2006 an Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) was established to fight fraud by combining and collating data and to analyse it. ‘Cash for crash’ gangs who fake RTAs led to the IFB obtaining its 500th fraud conviction by 2017. The IFB works with the National Crime Agency to stamp out such frauds. An Insurance Task Force was set up. Initially, claimant lawyer organisations were not involved but later they became involved. Lawyers on both sides have a common moral and financial interest in rejecting fraudulent claims. After the Big Bang in the 1980s and the deregulation of legal services advertising, claims farmers who advertised aggressively and netted potential customers, sold those potential claims on to lawyers. Eventually, these farmers were regulated, and fraudulent claims were reduced …
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Mr Justice Ritchie, ‘Dishonesty and exaggeration: is there a middle way to deal with this conduct in PI and clinical negligence claims? Or must we apply an on-off switch?’ (Personal Injury Bar Association Annual Richard Davies Lecture, 13th November 2025) [2026] Journal of Personal Injury Law (1) 3-21.
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