“While we agree with the ABI’s report that there can always be improvements to the system – and we believe in particular that claims management companies have no useful role to play in the system – the current government proposals in the Legal Aid and Punishment of Offenders Bill will mean that many victims will lose their opportunity to gain the compensation they deserve. As a result many will end up on state benefits, causing a drain on the public purse rather than claims against insurers,” added Mr Hudson.
Except they won’t end up on state benefits – as the insurance industry will see to it that you are denied state disability benefits as well! See the posts on UNUM PROVIDENT on this site. Their ‘Chief Medical Officer’ is now ATOS ORIGIN’S ‘Chief Medical Officer’. They really do have us stitched up like a cat in a bag, don’t they!
In November 2001 a conference assembled at Woodstock, near Oxford. Its subject was ‘Malingering and Illness Deception’. It too was organised by the insurance industry:
New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare by John Rutherford:
“The logic of welfare reform is to reduce costs by keeping claims to a minimum.
To achieve this, New Labour has adopted the practices of a private insurance company whose claims management in the US has been described as ‘illegal’.
With the Freud Report it has opened the door for further privatisation. 26
The workfare system that is taking shape in this country is turning the logic of welfare onto its head. It is no longer a system that seeks to help people who are sick or disabled; instead it is increasingly asking them how they can help us.
The demand for performativity in return for a meagre subsistence robs people of their autonomy – but New Labour dresses it up in the language of individual career development and dignity for the disabled. John Hutton describes workfare as a ‘something for something’ approach, and Tony Blair calls it ‘mutual responsibility’.
But the compact between the state and an individual whose life has been disrupted by disability or sickness is not an equal one.”
Read the full article in Soundings:.
