Tackling dishonest claimants in Scotland: why reform matters for insurers

Differences in how courts deal with, and approach, dishonest personal injury claimants and their claims can have a significant impact on claims outcomes and cost exposure.

While England & Wales have long had a statutory mechanism to strike out claims where the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest, Scotland continues to take a more permissive approach - focusing less on claimant conduct and behaviour and more on whether an entire claim is fundamentally dishonest.

This divergence has led to cases in Scotland continuing even where claimants have been shown to have misled experts or massively overstated their position - with claims in the hundreds of thousands sometimes being awarded only a fraction of what was originally pursued.
 
Writing exclusively for The Scotsman, Kelly Brotherhood and Vikki Melville advocate for the introduction in Scotland of a fundamental dishonesty provision, along the lines as already in place throughout the rest of Great Britain, noting that there is no reason in moral or legal principle for the law to be different on this between the British legal jurisdictions, and that there are very good, principled, reasons for Scotland to follow the English & Welsh approach.

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