I was consulted by a client who had become completely lost in the claims management process, and even now I am unsure that I have managed to untangle the complex relationships between the various corporate bodies involved.

The client was involved in a road traffic accident in which the van he uses for his business was badly damaged and all three occupants suffered a personal injury. He called the claim line which his broker had given him when he took out the policy. The broker did not take the matter up with our client’s insurer but passed his claim on to a claims management company (CMC) and doubtless received a referral fee for doing so.

The CMC then bluntly told him who his personal injury solicitor was and also presumably took a referral fee. They passed the accident damage claim to yet another third party (another referral fee?) who told him which garage to take his van to for repair and sent him to a hire company to obtain a hire van. In due course the van was returned ‘repaired’ and the hire van taken back.

The repairer had no experience with vans and the standard of the work was extremely poor, such that the cost of undoing the work and remedying it to standard means it is now beyond economic repair. In arriving at this point, the client has had to take the van off the road to have it inspected on a number of occasions. He has lost a great deal of money in lost business and wages paid to staff waiting for a serviceable van, and he has incurred significant costs and fees. But who does he sue? One of the potential defendants? All of them? Perm any two from six? There are no written agreements with anyone except the broker and that contract relates to the purchase of insurance.

At no time did anyone say to him that he had any choice in his solicitor or who repaired his van, and until quite late in the day he thought that work was being carried out at the request of his insurer. Even more worrying is that the solicitor acting in respect of his PI claim tried to help sort out the mess and was told by her managers that she must not do so as she had a conflict of interest. One wonders whether she can continue to deal with the PI claim.

The client is in a far worse position now than he would have been if he had just made a claim on his policy. His insurer now says that as he did not make a claim, it is not their problem.

And people try to justify referral fees?

Howard Shelley, QualitySolicitors CMHT, Walsall