Only 4% of CMC complaints relate to personal injury work, LeO reveals


Andrew Burford

Burford: “not here to be consumer champion”

Only 4% of complaints about claims management companies (CMCs) received by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) relate to personal injury work, it has emerged.

LeO took over the job of complaints handling for the sector in January this year from the Claims Management Regulation Unit, based at the Ministry of Justice.

Ombudsman Andrew Burford said yesterday that LeO received 253 complaints in its first three months in the new role – far less than many observers expected.

During the period from 28 January 2015 to the end of April, he said 94% of complaints related to financial products, 4% to personal injury and the rest to other areas of the law, particularly employment.

Mr Burford, who heads LeO’s claims management department, said 79% of the financial product complaints were about PPI and 16% about missold mortgages.

He said the biggest source of complaints about CMCs of all kinds was the lack of clear and transparent fees, followed by delays and the failure to provide regular updates.

“It’s important to remember that we’re not here to be a consumer champion or to fight for the industry,” he told a Westminster Legal Policy Forum seminar. “We’re an independent complaints service.

“We’re not here to catch out CMCs, we’re here to help CMCs improve and we can only do that in partnership with them.”

Mr Burford said LeO had closed 146 cases in its first three months, more than half of them by informal resolution. In 50% of cases, it found that there was no poor service.

LeO asked CMCs to reduce their fees in 21% of cases, to provide a full refund in 9% of cases, and a full refund plus compensation in a further 11%.

Mr Burford said separate consumer research carried out by the Legal Ombudsman revealed that only 35% of CMC customers knew who to complain to.

When consumers were asked if they could rely on CMCs to always tell the truth, only 4% said yes – compared to a figure of 47% for lawyers.

However, 52% of consumers who used CMCs said they were satisfied by the service they received.

Mr Burford added that during the first three months, one CMC had decided to surrender its authorisation following a series of complaints, and cited the transfer of complaints to LeO as one of its reasons for pulling out.

As Legal Futures reported earlier this week, figures from the Claims Management Regulation Unit show that the number of personal injury claims management companies (CMCs) has fallen below 1,000.

Tags:




    Readers Comments

  • Jeff Dawson says:

    Compelling evidence as to why we should leave the small claims limit at £1000 for personal injury. Viable claims are much more likely to be filtered properly through solicitors with a vested interest in success only and therefore clients expectations are much better managed. This is surely better for claimants AND defendants.


Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Five key issues to consider when adopting an AI-based legal tech

As generative AI starts to play a bigger role in our working lives, there are some key issues that your law firm needs to consider when adopting an AI-based legal tech.


Bulk litigation – not always working in consumers interests

For consumers to get the benefit, bulk litigation needs to be done well, and we are increasingly concerned that there are significant problems in some areas of this market.


ABSs, cost and audits – fixing regulation after Axiom Ince

A feature of law firm collapses and frauds has sometimes been the over-concentration of power in outdated and overburdened systems of control.


Loading animation