The Ministry of Justice is investigating why thousands of claims appear to have stalled in the whiplash portal. Around 385,000 claims that were started on the Official Injury Claim system since its launch remained ‘unresolved’ at the end of September, according to the department.

In its response to the justice committee’s concerns about the backlog, the government agreed that timely progression of cases is something officials are ‘investigating in detail’.

The response added: ‘Whilst the majority of claims proceed through OIC towards settlement, there are an increasing number of claims sitting on the system where no positive action to move them forward has been taken for some time and could, therefore, be considered as dormant.’

The committee reported in September that only a quarter of cases had reached settlement, despite the portal being active since May 2021. The average time taken to settle a claim is 251 days. This was predicted to increase further as more complex cases came through the system.

The government response stated that this average has indeed risen to 270 days, and for represented claimants it is higher still, at 327 days.

The MoJ said that the tranche of stalled claims includes those which have received a denial of liability and which the claimant has chosen not to pursue any further. Many were also halted pending the result of the Rabot case on mixed injury claims, which is due to be heard in the Supreme Court in February.

The response added: ‘MoJ agrees that more work needs to be undertaken to better understand the flow of claims through the OIC process. Additional data will be published from January 2024 to help to provide greater clarity on the impact of dormant claims on outstanding claim volumes.’

The committee's report also recommended that the government establish how exactly the estimated £1.2bn savings from the reforms have been passed onto motorists by insurers.

The Civil Liability Act, which formed the basis for the reforms, requires the Treasury to report by April 2025 on the savings achieved. The government’s response indicated that this work has already begun, but there are no commitments about bringing forward deadlines for publishing this research.

Law Society president Nick Emmerson said that the number of claims apparently stalled in the OIC is a matter of growing concern. 'We welcome the acknowledgement of this problem and the MoJ’s commitment to work to understand it better.' 

He called on the MoJ to tackle the work 'with urgency'.