LASPO boosts motor insurer's shares

The Jackson reforms and the ban on referral fees have boosted shares in one of the UK’s biggest car insurers to their highest level for 17 months, the Financial Times has reported.

The newspaper said the 4.5 per cent rise in the shares of Admiral Group, based in Cardiff (pictured), came after analysts from UBS highlighted the potential benefit to earnings of moves to cut the cost of personal injury claims.

They predicted that the combined effect of the ban on the recoverability of conditional fee insurance premiums and success fees and the ban on referral fees in the LASPO Act would cut the number of claims.

The analysts were also said to have highlighted the MoJ’s proposals to raise the small claims limit for personal injury cases to £5,000 and tighten the burden of proof for whiplash cases.

In a separate development, the SRA has dismissed a suggestion by the Law Society that it will not be ready to implement the referral fee ban by 1 April.

“While we’ve always made it clear that the deadline is tight and accept that there will be only a very short time between us publishing the final handbook changes and the ban coming into force, we are still working to the 1 April timetable,” a spokesman for the regulator said.

“This means asking the board to make handbook changes on 23 January then asking for LSB approval.

“There may have been discussions between the Law Society and the MoJ about delaying implementing the ban, but the SRA has not been part of these discussions and has not asked for any delay in the implementation date.”