This week the third reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will take place in parliament. Supporters hope that the Bill, which if passed will demolish common ‘No Win, No Fee’ arrangements, will spell an end to the UK’s ‘compensation culture’ and stop the ongoing hikes in insurance premiums. The rising cost of premiums is blamed by the insurance industry on the rise in personal injury claims – with the cost of these having doubled from £7billion to £14billion in the past decade1. However, the conflict of opinion grew fiercer last month when the family of Milly Dowler wrote to the prime minister arguing that without the current ‘No Win, No Fee’ system, they would never have been able to take their case against News International for phone hacking.

One of the biggest criticisms of ‘No Win, No Fee’ organisations is the unsolicited marketing methods used to secure accident victim clients. Fierce competition in the market has led to unorthodox and intrusive marketing such as hounding accident victims with cold calling, texts and emails, which although illegal, is seriously unregulated. Personal injury lawyers gain contact details from various bodies like car breakdown firms, insurance companies and in some cases even police and hospitals are blamed. The availability of these details is fuelled by referral fees, which can range from £200 to £1,000 per case.

Unwanted texts, promoting compensation claims to accident victims, are at the centre of a growing industry estimated to be worth at least £175 million. Almost one in three mobile adult mobile phone users report that they receive at least one spam message a month – a total of 12.75 million nuisance texts 3. A recent report found that Britain is in the midst of a “spamdemic” with around 4 million unsolicited text messages received everyday – a 300% explosion from 1 million in just four years. 107 million spam emails are received by UK homes each day or over 1,000 every second – up 30% from 82 million in 2007 4. Nearly two thirds of Brits think that cold calling should be made illegal5 and although spam messaging is already illegal, it is yet to be properly regulated. These sharp marketing practices by ‘No Win, No Fee’ organisations are expected to worsen as, if passed, the new bill will make competition even fiercer.