Are we seriously expected to believe that insurers will act fairly in connection with claims if Norwich Union's flowers idea is accepted (see [2004] Gazette, 9 December, 3)? Or that claimants will get a fair deal if the small claims limit is raised to £5,000?


One recent example leads me to believe they will not. I notified a tripping claim to a local authority whose insurer denied liability on the usual basis that the area had been inspected and that at the most recent inspection no defect had been present. Only after several telephone calls and letters did the insurer finally send me the inspection sheets. They seemed to show a defect existed after all, so I challenged the insurer, who admitted liability so promptly that I wondered whether its denial had been a deliberate tactic to see if I would abandon the claim.


Would many lay clients have known how to do that without assistance? Surely it is far more likely that my client would simply have accepted the denial and not received the £3,000 or so to which he will now be entitled.



Andrew Willcocks, Kirby Simcox, Bristol