Technical problems are continuing to hamper the new road traffic accident (RTA) information exchange, set up to handle hundreds of thousands of low-value RTA claims.

Solicitors told the Gazette this week that some have still not received access codes for the new RTA claims portal despite being promised them last week, while others who have received codes said they could not use the portal.

Introduced as part of Ministry of Justice reforms to speed up RTA claims between £1,000 and £10,000 and reduce their cost, the portal is intended to act as a secure electronic data exchange for claims.

Solicitors can access the portal via their web browser, or via their existing case management software if it has been upgraded. In each case, user IDs and passwords are required.

An email sent to solicitors last Friday by Insurance Database Services Limited (IDSL), which manages the portal, said that law firms plugging into the portal via their case management software would receive their login information before Monday. It also said that 500 claimant lawyer organisations using web browser access had received their user IDs and passwords and were able to access the portal, and that IDSL would issue outstanding login codes by the end of this week.

However, as the Gazette went to press, some solicitors plugging into the portal via their case management software had still not received their login details, while others who had received login details for web access said that they could not use the portal to process claims.

Firms accessing the portal via their case management software can still only complete ‘stage one’ of the process, involving the initial submission of a claim to an insurer (see [2010] Gazette, 6 May, 1). IDSL said that testing for ‘stage two’ is complete and awaiting final sign-off.

IDSL chief executive Fraser Fundell said that IDSL is ‘close to the end of the backlog’ of outstanding login details. ‘There are still some complaints but it is all moving forward at a fast pace,’ he said. ‘Many insurers are starting to see the claims.’