Sickness claim costs
A fixed recoverable costs regime which has been extended to gastric illness claims made abroad will not be applied to all personal injury claims relating to package holidays, a government report has concluded.
The Ministry of Justice today published the findings of a call for evidence into how to handle personal injury claims related to package holidays launched after Abta reported a 500% rise in holiday sickness claims between 2013 and 2016.
Operators had argued that uncontrollable costs incentivise claims management companies to encourage false and exaggerated claims, while claims firms said fixing costs would discourage genuine victims from making claims.
On May 7, fixed costs on holiday sickness claims were introduced, before which legal firms could rack up costs which in some cases were multiple times more than the value of the claim in a move commentators said was to force operators to pay out rather than challenge bogus claims.