No Win No Fee Encourages Unethical Behaviour

Critics are saying that advertisements for personal injury companies encourage fraudulent accident claims.

Funny and misleading advertisements are being cited as a cause for fraudulent accident claims this month. Rick Shapiro on Injury Board.com wrote a startling and critical polemic on the problem, saying that funny insurance advertisements are a disgrace.

The American writer was particularly critical of a series of ads by a company which he chose not to name, but which used funny cavemen to promote their services.

'What do funny cavemen have to do with whether the rates offered by Geico, Allstate, State Farm, or any insurance company are fair or whether that insurance company is ethical?' Shapiro asked. 'The message of these ads is what? Your insurance company thinks like cavemen? I think not' he added.

But Shapiro's tirade was just one of many which can be found online. Industry experts have been blogging and they all seem to agree that a degree of integrity is missing from advertising both in the US and to a slightly lesser extent, here in the UK, with regards to insurers and personal injury firms.'These ads rank up there in stupidity with the ads run by personal injury lawyers that repeat the words "cash, cash, cash, for you." ' Shapiro said.

It is easy to see why some consumers might see these ads as advocating a quick way to get some money. However, this is unlikely the intention of the firms who run these campaigns, because it is precisely these companies who must pay when criminals do flout the system.

One such scam attempt was discovered recently. After watching the 'no win, no fee' advertisements on television a man broke his partner's leg as part of a fraudulent accident claim. The man had intended to make £100,000 by saying that the accident had been sustained by a wall falling onto his girlfriend's leg and he had filled out forms in order to sue Plymouth Council.

However, according to Legal and Medical, the pair were caught when the police raided Thomson's house for an unrelated matter. During the raid they found paperwork that had been filled out to send to the council to make a claim and mobile phone video footage of Thomson breaking his partners leg filmed by a friend. Gordon Thompson was jailed for 3 years but, he had been inspired to act by enticing advertisements on television which made accident claims look easy and victimless, Thompson's girlfriend had to have a pin put in her leg and was on crutches for 6 months.

With cases like this in the news it is easy to wonder whether injury lawyers should advertise on the television at all. They are providing a service to those who truly need it and for whom various other methods of compensation are not supplied. They are not supposed to appeal to the worst nature of healthy people, only the better nature of those who need to be helped. Critics advise those who need legal representation to not be swayed by clever, capitalistic or funny advertising.

Rick Shapiro also said in his recent polemic: The issues that matter in the world of personal injury are which insurance companies are ethical and respectable, and which will fairly deal with your own claim, or a claim made against you.