Future of CTC accident line
Posted: 22 Jan 2010, 7:14pm
This is something else which could easily be dismissed as nothing to do with being a charity. I raise it because some forum members have raised doubts about the future of CTC services to members and the legal assistance is something that many value highly.
I think it's important to be clear what is involved. From reading posts on here, it seems that some members think the CTC provides a similar service to some motoring organisations in defending members against police prosecutions. This is simply not the case. The CTC's charity the Cyclists' Defence Fund http://www.cyclistsdefencefund.org.uk/ is able to provide some help, especially in crucial cases (Daniel Cadden in Telford being an obvious example) but this is not a benefit of CTC membership - it's something good the CTC did in forming the charity.
For anybody on the receiving end of a claim from somebody else, the CTC Third Party Insurance would conduct the negotiations and, if appropriate the defence. If the member ended up being liable, the insurance would indemnify them (if that's the right word.)
This leaves a member injured in a collision apparently caused by somebody else. For most practical purposes, civil legal aid is finished. Since about 2001, the normal way to fund a claim for ordinary people has been by way of a so-called "No win, No fee" case. The idea is that it encourages lawyers only to take on those cases where there is a realistic chance of winning (rather than taking public money for tilting at windmills.)
The cycling press contains plenty of ads from specialist firms and CTC members have Russell Jones and Walker - a large national firm. The same firm - which also uses the name Claims Direct also offers a no-win, no fee service to any cyclist. http://www.claimsdirect.co.uk/what-are- ... -accidents In the past I've tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation as to what extra, if anything, CTC membership provided here. I've had a couple of sniffy comments but no clarification. I finally worked out that the CTC has a collective conditional fee agreement with RJW which briefly means that instead of taking out their own insurance against losing and having to pay the other side's costs, the CTC does this and then gets a cut of the "success fee" paid by the other side to RJW if the CTC member wins. All well and good: it's easier for the CTC member and the Club (sic) makes a bit as well (but not from what the member is entitled to.) Having found that out, I was a bit surprised that nobody from HQ or whatever it's now called put me right when I first raised this.
Now (and anybody thinking "so what? should now pay attention) although it's only been running a relatively short time, the whole NWNF fee thing is getting a very bad name - not least because our learned friends are making it crack to the extent it's said that for every £1 paid in compo, £1-80 is paid in costs
.
So a legal bigwig has written a very long report (which I've not read
) suggesting it all needs to change again. I've only seen the bits emphasised in the report in The Times but among those bits is one suggesting collective conditional fee agreements should be discouraged. It's suggested this sort of thing should be covered by household insurance.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 988844.ece
(The reference to trade unions is because they usually have this service for their members, a big provider being a national firm of solicitors called RJW....)
I've no idea of the timescales or the likelihood of this being implemented, but it might be a valued CTC membership benefit out of the window.
I think it's important to be clear what is involved. From reading posts on here, it seems that some members think the CTC provides a similar service to some motoring organisations in defending members against police prosecutions. This is simply not the case. The CTC's charity the Cyclists' Defence Fund http://www.cyclistsdefencefund.org.uk/ is able to provide some help, especially in crucial cases (Daniel Cadden in Telford being an obvious example) but this is not a benefit of CTC membership - it's something good the CTC did in forming the charity.
For anybody on the receiving end of a claim from somebody else, the CTC Third Party Insurance would conduct the negotiations and, if appropriate the defence. If the member ended up being liable, the insurance would indemnify them (if that's the right word.)
This leaves a member injured in a collision apparently caused by somebody else. For most practical purposes, civil legal aid is finished. Since about 2001, the normal way to fund a claim for ordinary people has been by way of a so-called "No win, No fee" case. The idea is that it encourages lawyers only to take on those cases where there is a realistic chance of winning (rather than taking public money for tilting at windmills.)
The cycling press contains plenty of ads from specialist firms and CTC members have Russell Jones and Walker - a large national firm. The same firm - which also uses the name Claims Direct also offers a no-win, no fee service to any cyclist. http://www.claimsdirect.co.uk/what-are- ... -accidents In the past I've tried unsuccessfully to get an explanation as to what extra, if anything, CTC membership provided here. I've had a couple of sniffy comments but no clarification. I finally worked out that the CTC has a collective conditional fee agreement with RJW which briefly means that instead of taking out their own insurance against losing and having to pay the other side's costs, the CTC does this and then gets a cut of the "success fee" paid by the other side to RJW if the CTC member wins. All well and good: it's easier for the CTC member and the Club (sic) makes a bit as well (but not from what the member is entitled to.) Having found that out, I was a bit surprised that nobody from HQ or whatever it's now called put me right when I first raised this.
Now (and anybody thinking "so what? should now pay attention) although it's only been running a relatively short time, the whole NWNF fee thing is getting a very bad name - not least because our learned friends are making it crack to the extent it's said that for every £1 paid in compo, £1-80 is paid in costs
. So a legal bigwig has written a very long report (which I've not read
) suggesting it all needs to change again. I've only seen the bits emphasised in the report in The Times but among those bits is one suggesting collective conditional fee agreements should be discouraged. It's suggested this sort of thing should be covered by household insurance.http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 988844.ece
(The reference to trade unions is because they usually have this service for their members, a big provider being a national firm of solicitors called RJW....)
I've no idea of the timescales or the likelihood of this being implemented, but it might be a valued CTC membership benefit out of the window.