Guidance

Official Injury Claim (OIC) Advisory Group meeting: 23 October 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm

Updated 10 March 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Summary minutes and actions: 23 October 2024, 1pm to 2:30pm

Attendees

• Ministry of Justice (Chair and secretariat) (MoJ)
• Motor Insurers’ Bureau (OIC service operators) (MIB)
• Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) 
• Motor Accident Solicitors Society (MASS)  
• Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL)  
• Association of British Insurers (ABI) 
• MedCo

Apologies:

• HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS)       
• Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC)

Item 1: Introduction

1. The Chair welcomed attendees, outlined the agenda and provided the following update on the actions from the previous meeting:

i. MIB to provide one month’s data for ‘other’ (free typed) reasons for exit – Action completed;

ii. MoJ to have follow up call with the CPRC member regarding OIC wording on non-protocol vehicle costs. Action completed, but further follow discussions with the CPRC RTA sub-committee are planned.

Item 2: MoJ Update

2. An update was given in relation to the forthcoming publication of the report on the statutory review of the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021. MoJ noted that there are two common commencement dates used when implementing or amending measures (6 April and 1 October) and the general rule of thumb is to commence changes to secondary legislation on one of these dates.

3. Additionally, any changes arising from the Lord Chancellor’s review would be applied to accidents which occurred on or after the commencement date of the revised regulations. This is consistent with the approach taken when the original regulations applying the tariff were introduced in 2021.

Item 3: OIC data and performance update

4. MIB provided an overview of the latest quarterly operational data, which was published on the OIC website on 10 October 2024.

5. A discussion was held on various aspects of the data on exits from the service. It was agreed that MIB would update the OIC glossary to include the definition of ‘removal-pending’ as this was different to ‘withdrawal-pending’. It was also agreed that in future, the data presented by MIB should clearly differentiate between withdrawals by claimants and removals by defendants.

ACTION POINT 1: MIB to update the OIC glossary to differentiate between claims marked as ‘pending removal’ and those marked as ‘pending withdrawal.

ACTION POINT 2: MIB to ensure that any OIC exit data presented to the group clearly differentiates between claimant withdrawals and defendant removals.

6. The issue of claim dormancy was raised and there was a helpful discussion on how the number of dormant claims can skew the data. Members also considered the issue of compensators having to keep reserves for dormant claims.

7. Members discussed the effect of claims whose limitation period has expired in some detail. It was clarified that cases closed for due to limitation period expiry, and archived by OIC, can be reopened on request by the Portal Support Centre. The group had a helpful discussion on the issues related to limitation as a defence, applications under Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980, the costs of archiving and the length of time claims should be held.

Item 4: Update on OIC September rollout + CPRC on PAP and PD changes

8. The MIB provided details of the OIC technical update launched in September. This included the automatic archiving of cases 3 years and 3 months after the accident date. There is also now a system in place to automatically close dormant cases which are pending removal, withdrawal, acknowledgement or new. These measures should reduce the number of dormant claims.

9. MIB have also implemented changes to the system for dealing with limitation affected claims. MoJ confirmed that supporting rule changes have been agreed by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee which will be implemented in due course.

Item 5: Member feedback

10. It was noted that some medical report providers are having trouble getting paid in relation to reports produced for unrepresented claimants. Affected report providers have been asked to check their details are correct on OIC to help ensure payments don’t go missing. Other group members agreed to raise this issue with their members and confirmed that further education on when payments should be made is being considered.

11. It was also stated that there has been an increase in the number of people using the OIC messaging service to send medical report details and settlement offers instead of using the appropriate OIC functionality. MoJ noted that such use might be related to issues earlier in the year when changes to the Judicial College Guidelines meant some claimants wished to send revised offers. However, it is important to understand if this is the case or if people are attempting to bypass the proper procedure. Members were asked to monitor this and to provide feedback to the group if such behaviours persist.

ACTION POINT 3: Advisory Group members to liaise with their members to monitor whether the OIC messaging system is being used inappropriately to circumvent the OIC process and to provide feedback on their findings.

Item 6: Review of OICAG’s Terms of Reference and structure

12. MoJ introduced the item and noted that as the whiplash reforms and OIC have been in place for over 3 years now it was appropriate to reconsider the purpose and role of the Advisory Group. It was also suggested that members should give thought as to whether members with direct front line of the system would be a useful addition, and whether the quarterly meeting schedule should be changed.

13. Members generally felt that the current constitution of the group was appropriate and that holding meetings quarterly was the right frequency, although one member suggested they would find it useful to have people with direct experience of using OIC represented on the group. It was also suggested that a sub-group of direct OIC users might be helpful for obtaining specific feedback.

14. It was also noted that the constitution of the group needs to be useful to MoJ, MIB and the members. Members were asked to continue to consider this point following the meeting and to send any additional thoughts they might have to the MoJ secretariat by 20 December 2024.

ACTION POINT 4: MoJ to reflect on whether any changes should be made to the Advisory Group and to bring any proposed changes to the January meeting for discussion.

Item 7: Next steps and AOB

15. The MoJ summarised the actions arising and next steps, and confirmed that:

a. the minutes will be circulated to members for approval before publication on gov.uk; and

b. the next meeting will be held in January and a firm date will be sent out with the meeting minutes.

16. Members were encouraged to feedback to their members and to send any suggested topics for the next meeting to the MoJ secretariat by 20 December 2024.