Government Minister Lord Keen of Elie has confirmed that a statutory instrument to increase the small claims limits in Personal Injury cases will be brought forward in the second half of this year.

If you have a Personal Injury claim which is valued less than the small claims limit then a Solicitor would usually be unlikely to take your case on as they would not recover all of their costs for the work they have undertaken.

As things currently stand, the small claims limit for all Personal Injury cases is £1,000.

The new small claims limits will be increased to £5,000 for road traffic related PI claims and £2,000 for all other types of Personal Injury claims.   This means that some people, who could have previously obtained Solicitors assistance in making a claim, will probably be unable to in the future and this may leave genuinely injured people without redress.

The Government has also planned fixed tariffs in order to cap whiplash compensation payments. These fixed tariffs are far lower than the current compensation levels. The Government’s idea behind this is to reduce the amount of “fraudulent claims” and also to lower insurance premiums, which remains to be seen.

What it will mean, however, is that innocent victims of road traffic accidents will not be compensated fully and will be financially worse off following the changes.

If you do have a personal injury claim, seek urgent advice before the changes come in to force.