Had an accident? You must have been injured!

I was at a local sports centre with my son recently when the owner of the centre came over to me and said;

"Hi Carl, I believe you know something about this 'No Win, No Fee' stuff?"

I said that I had had some dealings with it.

So my friend went on;

"Well I had a minor bump in my car the other day - old chap reversed into me whilst I was stationary. He was very apologetic and we exchanged details and went on our separate ways. Anyway later in the day I got a call from some claims company asking if I wanted to make a claim."

"Go on then", I ventured, pretty much certain what was coming next.

"Well" my friend replied, "they asked if I was injured, and I told them that I wasn't, that the accident was very minor. Anyway they told me that injuries are not always obvious immediately after the accident and that it was possible that over the next few days I might start getting neck and back problems. I told them that it was a really minor bump and that I was fine. However they persisted and said that everyone has some injury after an accident and they said that I would probably get at least £1500. They said that it wouldn't cost the other bloke anything, that it was just his insurance company that would have to pay out and that he would have lost his 'no claims' bonus anyway. What should I do?"

"Were you injured - have you got any symptoms of injury?", I rather wearily asked.

"No", came the anticipated reply.

"Then you have answered your own question about what you should do", came my final response and with that he nodded and went back to his exercises.

I'm not blaming my friend for asking the question. After being told in a round-about way by this company that it was fine to make a claim for injury even when he hadn't suffered any, he was entitled to see whether this was commonplace or even accepted practice. I could have told him that it was unfortunately quite commonplace, that this was what the industry that I first practiced in as long ago as 1987 had come to in many instances, that there were too many lawyers and claims companies trying to compete over a limited number of claims involving genuine injuries and that his experience was an example unfortunately, of what can happen as a result. Fortunately my friends conscience had told him what the right thing to do was. I didn't need to say anything more.