I don’t know if you have had a text message telling you that “following your recent accident you could be due” this is then followed by a four figure sum you could clam from an insurer. Well let me say that I have had a couple of these and I cannot remember when I last had a car accident as it is so long ago! Hearing the BBC news this morning that an MP is demanding action to stop insurers paying out on these claims was music to my ears. As these claims, many of which are bogus, add substantially to all our car insurance premiums, the sooner it is stopped the better. I am not suggesting that someone who has been injured in a car accident should not receive financial recompense, but it is widely understood that some people are professionals at claiming.

Good news to hear was that the Transport Select Committee says claimants should provide much more proof that they have suffered a whiplash injury. Also MPs want insurers to be banned from selling any customer information. The government intends to ban them from receiving referral fees for this data, but only for personal injury claims. It seems incredible that practices that push up premiums such as passing drivers’ personal data to other parties or taking secretive referral fees from solicitors, garages and car hire firms, is allowed.

There has been a 70% rise in motor insurance injury claims in the past six years, despite a 23% drop in the number of casualties actually caused by road accidents, whiplash apparently accounted for 70% of all these injury claims, amounting to roughly 554,000 whiplash claims in 2010-11. Bring on some legislation I say.