AXA MAKES FOURTH OFFER TO ACCIDENT EXCHANGE OVER AUTOFOCUS CASES

The UK arm of Axa has made a "full and final settlement" offer to Accident Exchange, a provider of courtesy vehicles to victims of motor accidents, reports Insurance Age. The case relates to inaccurate rating information provided to insurers by services company Autofocus. This led to lower court-ordered compensatory payments to Accident Exchange than should have been the case. In its latest statement, Axa said as an explanation of its strategy that “in view of the significant number and value of cases in the claim against Axa Corporate Solutions and Axa Commercial Lines and Personal Intermediary, a decision was made to investigate what alternative rates evidence could be found retrospectively, rather than accept Accident Exchange’s claim based on their full commercial hire rates". Axa added that it understood Accident Exchange had accepted settlements well below commercial rates, but that in credit hire cases the burden of evidence was "stacked in favour" of credit hire companies. The insurer said that it presented the evidence that could be found retrospectively, but that it had become clear that "this was unlikely to be enough for the courts". It said that its offer, after subtracting from Accident Exchange's claim a significant number of cases where Axa had not used Autofocus or where the amount claims was attributable to non-hire related reasons, was "within the range of settlement that Accident Exchange had previously made clear was acceptable as settlement from other insurers". Axa and Accident Exchange boss Steve Evans have been embroiled in a bitter dispute running for over three years that has occasionally descended into the personal on both sides, and which clearly involves completely different world views on the roles of Axa and Accident Exchange in the disagreement. Last month a retrial in the case of Gregory v Sozos, relating to a November 2007 accident and initially heard in the Small Claims Court in October 2010, was settled the day before the hearing. Mr Evans called Axa's strategy, over a case involving little more than £1,300 in disputed payments but up to £40,000 in costs, "bewildering and commercially illiterate". He has said that hundreds more cases were "at large", although only 11 have been set for retrial. It is not clear how many cases Axa has "stripped out" in its settlement offer, but the proportion is likely to be a significant factor in deciding whether Accident Exchange accepts.