More on taking a chance.

A friend who reads this blog over my shoulder, as it were, has suggested that I was too hard on insurance companies last Thursday. He maintains that the main blame lies with the courts and their willingness these days to award damages for the least little scratch. Well, I don't think the courts are to blame as much as the system of which they are part, and if we're looking for causae sine qua non then we need to go further back in time. The rot really set in some 30 years ago when (a) solicitors got the right to advertise and (b) official recognition was given to conditional fee agreements - so-called "no win, no fee". This has resulted in an explosion of compensation claims, the majority of which, because of the financial penalties which would result from fighting and losing them, are settled out of court - despite the fact that many of the claims have little or no merit, and would probably be thrown out if in fact they came to court. This in turn has resulted in potential defendants to such claims seeking more and more insurance cover, which in turn....blah, blah, blah. Of course, not everybody sees this as a bad thing, and there's no doubt as a result of these changes, some people have received compensation who otherwise would not have realised they might be entitled to it. You'll have to make your own minds up as to whether the good outweighs the bad.