The company behind National Accident Helpline today hailed the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment on hybrid claims as a potential driver of future growth as it unveiled annual results in line with expectations. 

NAHL Group continues to distribute most enquiries to panel firms, but pointed to the 'growing maturity' of its own firm, National Accident Law. NAL collected £6m in cash from settlements in 2023, a 73% increase on the previous 12 months. 

Pre-tax profit ticked up 14% in calendar 2023 to £650,000, on group revenue 2% higher at £42.2m. Net debt came down 27% to  £9.7m.

Consumer legal services generated revenue of £27.6m, down from £28.3m in 2022, which the group attributed to the disposal of online marketing subsidiary Homeward Legal and the reduction in size of its joint venture LLPs. National Accident Law (NAL) 'is nearing an inflection point, when the expected value of new claims started is broadly equal to the value of those settled', the company said. 'Investing more enquiries into NAL, now that we can see the return, will increase its potential even further.'

In 2023 the group placed 8,518 enquiries into NAL, which were of a ‘higher quality’ than previous years. It estimates that these will generate £6.6m in future revenue and cash, compared to £5.9m in 2022. 

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NAHL said the personal injury business had outperformed the market, increasing enquiries by 2% and market share by 8%. 

In March personal injury lawyers secured a significant win at the Supreme Court in a battle to claim extra damages for non-whiplash injuries. The ruling in Hassam is 'a positive development for personal injury claimants and the group as it will translate into increased average revenues in RTA mixed injury claims being processed by NAL', the group said.

NAHL is mulling a sale of subsidiary Bush & Co, a service provider to the catastrophic injury sector, but this is ‘at a very early stage’.

James Saralis, chief executive of NAHL, described the group’s results as ‘solid’, adding: 'We demonstrated further improvements in our personal injury business, which was again profitable and cash-generative, and delivered double-digit growth in critical care. These strong results position us well to maintain our growth and realise the step-change that we have been working towards as our own fully integrated law firm, NAL, matures.'

 

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