For five years, the legal profession has been calling for a change to how personal injury claims for children or so-called ‘minor settlements’ are dealt with by insurance companies, closing a loophole in the law whereby those companies use sophisticated processes to liaise directly with a child’s parent / guardian to agree the claim amount – often without important information such as medical reports – and without placing the compensation under the protection of the court until the child reaches 18.
We are calling for it to be made mandatory that in all personal injury cases concerning children under 18, regardless of the amount of compensation, that a judge approves an adequate sum that compensates the injured child and that the agreed compensation is placed under the protection of the court until the child reaches the age of 18.
Lord Justice Gillen’s review of Civil Justice in Northern Ireland in September 2017 proposed new legislation to compel a requirement for court approval in all legal cases involving a settlement or award of damages to minors.