OIC roundtables a success!

We shared with you last month how we had welcomed users from the claimant and defendant communities to feed back their experiences of using the OIC portal. Following those two roundtable sessions, the concepts and ideas put forward were then collated and played back to the attendees of the third and final session to drive discussion.  

The roundtable held at the MIB (Motor Insurers’ Bureau) headquarters on 29 June saw a broad spectrum of senior stakeholders across the claimant, defendant, and trade body communities in attendance, including MASS (Motor Accident Solicitors Society), APIL (Association of Personal Injury Lawyers), FOIL (Forum of Insurance Lawyers), ABI (Association of British Insurers) and the MoJ (Ministry of Justice). Martin Saunders (Head of Service for OIC) led the agenda for the day and was supported by members of his team from the previous events, with the addition of James Dalton (Chief Services Officer) in the room. Attendees were provided with findings from the market feedback form and themes from the previous two sessions.  

As a recap, high-level ‘key themes’ from both the claimant and defendant sessions covered:   

Claimant roundtable 

• Recoverable counsel fees 
• Improve the claimant’s journey when liability is disputed 
• Issue with going to court multiple times on the same claim 

 
Defendant roundtable 

• Medical journey should be similar to LIP to ensure timely medicals and transparency 
• Improve transfer process between compensators and TPAs (third party administrators) 

The group was then given time for an open floor discussion on what they’d heard as well as the opportunity to bring forward any of their own feedback on the operation of the portal. While there was commentary surrounding policy and behaviours and the expected uncertainty surrounding mixed injury, it was great to hear that overall, all communities felt that the portal was now stable and working well. Following on from the open floor discussion, attendees were then walked through the next steps, including the feedback process to the MOJ, the change process ahead and timelines. 

A copy of the presentation shared in the session can be found here. The slides which contain data points have been amended to include numbers for the whole of June 2023.  

We reached out for comment from a cross-section of attendees from the day, they had the following to say: 
 

Pam Roach – Technical Controller, Group Claims at Markerstudy Group: 

“I thought it was a really interesting and useful meeting – especially good to get some people with, shall we say “contrasting views” in the same room.  Hope that this is something we can repeat as we move into another new and interesting phase of OIC as we start getting cases that are out of scope for tariff due to the length of the prognosis, and others that are pushing the SCT limit.” 

Ryan Siner – Solicitor & Director at Robert James Law: 

“It was great to be given a platform to raise issues of genuine concern with the insurance sector and their trade groups. I also think it was useful to highlight that aside from the usual glitches and process improvements one would expect with a new system, in most cases the OIC portal is working very well.” 

Mark Shepherd – Assistant Director, Head of General Insurance Policy for Association of British Insurers (ABI): 

“The roundtable was a great opportunity for both claimants and defendants to get together in person to take stock of the first two years of the OIC portal, and to discuss what any future changes to the portal might look like. Thank you to the MIB for hosting and we would really welcome engagement opportunities like this in the future.” 

Matthew Maxwell-Scott - Executive Director, The Association of Consumer Support Organisations: 

"Since the launch of the OIC, the MIB has shown its willingness to engage across the sector to help ensure better consumer outcomes, whether injured people claim with help or as litigants-in-person. This event was a great opportunity to hear the latest, offer feedback and discuss in detail the path ahead. ACSO and its members are always happy to offer honest views, knowing we'll get a fair and timely response." 

We’re still listening 

As we previously covered in our last blog post, we remain engaged and are aware that many interested parties will still want to contribute feedback on the service. We continue to invite users across all communities to share their experiences and opinions with us directly via the OIC industry feedback form, which we will now keep open indefinitely. 

Following the positive feedback received surrounding these recent events, we are pleased to confirm that we will seek to run further roundtable discussions in 2024 to track progress and provide the same collaborative space between the market and OIC.