Technology developed for Britain's largest industrial compensation scheme could offer a solution to the problems of expense and delay in handling personal injury claims and reduce the overall cost of cases by 30% to 40%, it has been claimed.

IT specialist Elision developed a document scanning and on-line file- sharing system that gave lawyers involved in the coal miners' scheme easy access to the huge amounts of information collated measuring the effects of coal dust.


Speaking at a seminar on insurance litigation and claims handling in London last week, Neil Kinsella, managing partner of national firm Russell Jones & Walker, told delegates that the system could be developed further to create on-line electronic files that can be accessed and shared by all parties involved in personal injury cases.


Kinsella: reduce cost of cases

This would avoid the unnecessary printing and duplication of documents and allow lawyers, medics and insurers to view and work on documents on-line, he added.


Clients would be given legal advice explaining the consequences of file sharing, while access would be limited to the parts of the file a party was entitled to see.


Mr Kinsella said: 'The shared file would form the start of the case. Information would be gathered in a way that enables the claimant's solicitor to make a reasonable risk assessment and the insurers to make a decision on liability.


'The system would enable offer and acceptance of settlement to be done as efficiently and cheaply as possible and reduce the overall cost of a case by 30%.'


A spokesman for Elision agreed. 'Taking this technology forward to personal injury cases would deal with the costs involved in information gathering and delay, and could reduce the cost by 30% to 40%,' he said.