Vision

Agentic AI in personal injury. People make the difference.

29 October 2026
Dirk Kon
20 min

The agents do the paperwork. The people do the contact.

Where the market stands

Personal injury in the UK is large in volume and heavy in weight. In the financial year 2025 to 2026 the Compensation Recovery Unit of the DWP registered 435,565 cases: 300,867 motor, 46,791 employers' liability, 60,399 public liability and 14,562 clinical negligence. In 2019 to 2020 the total was 829,252. Volumes have fallen sharply since then, but each claim still carries the same chain. Motor insurers alone paid £2.4 billion in personal injury claims in 2023, down from £2.6 billion the year before (ABI figures, as reported by Insurance Edge).

  • 435,565cases registered with the CRU, 2025 to 2026
  • 367days on average from claim to settlement in the OIC (Q2 2026)
  • 87.4%of OIC claims made with a professional representative

Road traffic claims under £5,000 have run since 31 May 2021 through the Official Injury Claim service, run by MIB for the Ministry of Justice. It receives around 20,000 claims a month. In April to June 2026 the average time from claim submission to settlement was 367 days. In June, represented claimants took 386 days on average and unrepresented claimants 173. The OIC itself names the barrier: claims that stall. At the end of June, 70,526 claims were dormant at 'pending medical', for 595 days on average, and 32,697 dormant after liability was rejected. The file waits for a document, and nobody moves it.

A large part of the cost is not compensation. Since October 2023 most legal costs in personal injury in England and Wales are fixed recoverable costs, set by stage. In April 2024 they rose by a further 3.2% for inflation (Ministry of Justice). The recoverable cost of a fixed-cost medical report in low-value road traffic claims rose by 25.4% in April 2025. There is no recent public total of the claimant costs insurers pay. The nearest public measure comes from the NHS, not from insurers: in clinical negligence, legal costs for claims of £25,000 or less were 3.7 times the damages awarded in 2024 to 2025 (National Audit Office). Costs that sit largely in the process.

A file never belongs to one party. Around a claimant stand a solicitor or other representative, a handler at the compensator, a MedCo-accredited medical expert, often a rehabilitation case manager under the 2015 Rehabilitation Code, a loss adjuster, and the CRU, which recovers benefits and NHS charges before compensation is paid. In the OIC, 87.4% of claims in the second quarter of 2026 had professional representation, three quarters of them through law firms. Small claims have a portal. Above it, almost all of that traffic runs by email, with medical reports as attachments.

Meanwhile, in the claims teams we speak to, few young people are coming in. On the other side of the table, claimants write their own letters with AI. The judiciary's guidance of October 2025 says it plainly: AI chatbots are now being used by unrepresented litigants, who rarely have the skills to verify what the chatbot tells them. In the OIC, 12.6% of claims are made without a representative. More text, the same people.

All that traffic is not in the handling itself. It sits before it, between and after. That is why personal injury is a chain problem, and why it gets stuck at insurers.

The civil justice system sees it too. The Civil Justice Council's review of the pre-action protocols asks for a section on good communication between the parties, more prominence for the Rehabilitation Code, and a shared stocktake before proceedings. And the people outside the professional chain look for the status themselves: in April to June 2026 the OIC support centre took 4,592 calls from unrepresented claimants, with progress updates among the five most common reasons. That is exactly the front door and the file this piece is about.

Why it gets stuck at insurers

Personal injury is a chain problem.

  1. Before
    The claim trickles in

    A letter of claim from the solicitor, a portal notification, a phone call. Three entrances for one incident, retyped into the system.

  2. Inside
    The process runs

    Once the insurer is in contact, it flows: a named handler, a track by severity, deadlines in view. That is not where the gain is.

  3. Between
    Twelve inboxes

    Claimant solicitor, medical agency, rehabilitation case manager, engineer: each in their own environment. The medical report hangs on the wrong thread.

  4. After
    It comes back

    What is not captured at the front comes back at the end: chasers, costs, complaints and court.

It is a chain problem. Inside, it runs; the work sits before it, between and after.

Inside the insurer the process runs. Once the insurer is in contact, it flows: a workload, a track by severity, deadlines in view. That is not where the gain is. The work sits before it and between. The letter of claim by email, the portal notification, the phone call: three entrances for one incident, retyped into the system. The claimant or the solicitor who calls for a status. The medical report on the wrong thread. The reserve that goes to management by hand. Payments confirmed by email. And after: what was not captured at the front comes back at the end as chasers, costs, complaints and court.

The protocols set the clock. Under the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims, the defendant replies within 21 calendar days and has a maximum of three months to investigate liability. In the small claims portal the compensator responds on liability within 30 business days. Under the Rehabilitation Code, the compensator should respond to a request for rehabilitation within 21 days. Each of those deadlines is kept in a diary, a workload or an inbox. None of them is visible to everyone in the chain.

Insurers manage on overhead. Motor damage is the easy side: high volumes, own customers, a dent in the car. A business case for automation there writes itself. Personal injury has fewer claims and an extremely complex process, with claimants who are not customers. The business case is there. It lies in the chain. Insurers look too much at each other and inward to see it.

A system that only improves the inside does not structure that flow of information. At best it makes the mailbox faster.

Only the insurer can break this. You are the one held liable, everything comes together with you, and you decide what you need. Capture that at the front: in fields, in a portal, with a status everyone sees. That is a choice about who runs the process.

What AI really changes, and what it does not

For the first time the computer supports us in the substance of the work, instead of us supporting the computer. For thirty years we fed systems, filled fields and clicked through workflows. Now the system reads along, summarises, flags and proposes. That reverses the relationship, and that is why this adoption is moving so fast. In 2024, 95% of insurance firms told the Bank of England and the FCA that they already use AI, the highest share of any sector.

The technology is not the challenge. People are, and the willingness of an organisation to let go of a process that has worked for twenty years. An AI pilot on a single task leaves the process as it was. Then you have a faster process from 2005.

AI on poor data is impossible. Twelve parties, several medical reports, loose emails over a file that runs for years: no model keeps that apart. If claimant, solicitor, medical expert and insurer each let their own AI loose on a process that runs on email and attachments, the traffic becomes faster and heavier. The file is still in six places. The result is a faster mailbox. The regulator looks at exactly this. The FCA has said it will not introduce new regulations for AI and relies on the Consumer Duty, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime and its expectations on governance. In October 2026 it found that some firms' AI decisions were poorly documented, with limited audit trails, and that some treated governance as a point-in-time exercise.

AI forces you to get your information flows in order.

That is the real change. Every insurer keeps thinking inside its own bubble: its own system, its own department, its own workload. But a claim never starts there. A claim always starts with the claimant. That is where the process starts, and that is where you have to approach it from. Then you structure the data at the source. Then you decide the quality of the fields that have to come in. In effect, as an insurer you say: this is what I need to assess a claim, and this is how you provide it. That is how you take control of the chain.

The result is that the data comes together in one portal, with everyone in it, each with their own role and their own permissions. Claimant, solicitor, handler, medical expert, case manager: the same information, each their own part. That is exactly the situation agentic AI needs in order to help: one file that is right, with roles and permissions the model takes over. What that looks like in practice is set out in the use cases on AI solutions.

And there is something AI does not change. People need real contact, most of all at the moment they are hurt. A claimant with an injury is exactly that moment. The more of the process runs by itself, the more the conversation weighs.

Our vision: hybrid, human where it counts

We believe in a hybrid model. Automate everything around process and administration. Make everything around the claimant and the contact as personal as possible. The online model gets stronger through the personal contact, and the contact gets better through the online model.

minor injury · file 2026-04471 · whiplash, OIC five weeks

Agents

  • Sun 22.40 claim in via the OIC
  • Sun 22.41 file opened, next step explained
  • Mon 07.10 policy, liability, signals checked
  • Mon 07.10 proposal ready: admit liability
  • Mon 07.14 handler approves, response sent
  • week 3 medical report in, classified
  • week 3 tariff offer drafted
  • week 4 offer accepted, payment on its way
  • week 5 file closed

9 actions · 0 emails · 0 status calls

People

Mon 07.14 · 4 minutes

The handler reads the proposal and decides.

week 3 · 20 minutes

She presses 'Would you like to speak to someone?'. Within the hour a handler calls. About her neck.

Thu 15.30 · the serious file

The handler is at the home of a claimant with a serious injury. That is where her time goes.

Minor injury: the agents do the handling. The human is there at the moment it counts.

In practice it looks like this. Minor injury can run straight through, within limits the handler sets in advance, for example claims inside the £5,000 small claims limit for road traffic injury. The claim comes in complete, the policy is right, liability is clear, the signals are clean, and the liability response goes out on the first working day instead of the last. The Civil Liability Act 2018 bans settling a whiplash claim without medical evidence, so the offer waits for the medical report. When it lands, the tariff offer is prepared and the handler approves it. If the claimant wants a conversation after all, that option has to be there, with one click and without a queue. With serious injury it is the other way round. There, the handler is the product, and the machine takes off her hands everything that is not about the person.

That makes the human factor more important than ever. When every insurer runs the same models, the contact is the only thing left that sets you apart. Whoever does it well makes it their brand.

That requires a completely different process from the one insurers have today, inside and outside. It starts with the customer and the claimant. You have filed your tax return online for years. You track a parcel on your phone. And your claim?

Seven principles

  1. Start with the claimant. The process starts with the person who has the injury. Making a claim should be as easy as tracking a parcel: online, on the phone, complete in twenty minutes.
  2. Ask for data in fields. You only ask for what you need to assess the claim, mandatory and validated. Incomplete does not come in. That is the only way to secure data quality at the front.
  3. Be transparent about the process. Every party involved sees in the portal or the app exactly where the claim stands and what the next step is. That alone removes most of the status questions and calls (see 'What it delivers').
  4. The insurer takes control of the chain. The insurer decides what it needs, in what form and through which channel. Everything comes together there.
  5. Human where it counts. Automate everything around process and administration, keep everything around contact personal. Minor injury straight through, within limits the handler sets, unless the claimant wants a person. Serious injury never: there the handler is in control, relieved by the machine.
  6. AI prepares, the human decides. Policy, fraud, prioritisation, signals, drafts for digital and paper communication: the machine prepares. The handler assesses and decides. That is how 'human in the loop' gets real meaning. It is also what UK data protection law asks for: where a significant decision is taken solely by automated means, the person must be able to obtain human intervention and contest the decision.
  7. Connect once. Every party in the chain connects once and is then connected to everyone else who has connected. No bilateral integrations, no twelve inboxes.

Do you recognise this in your own chain? Book a conversation.

How it works

One layer at the base: Claim360, the orchestration layer over the core system that stays in place. Claim360 connects the chain. On top of it the portal brings the data in properly, the workflow keeps track, and only then does AI work.

  1. The human decides and has the conversation

    The handler assesses every proposal, decides, and has time for the claimant.

  2. AI layer prepares

    Summary, triage, signals, fraud, prioritisation, policy check, classification, reserving, drafts. Explainable and logged.

  3. Workflow automation monitors

    Deadlines, tasks, escalations and payments run by themselves. What the system knows, nobody has to watch.

  4. Portal (Azori) steers data quality

    Data arrives in fields. Every party knows where they stand and what is expected of them. Status, schedule of loss, documents and messages, per role.

  5. Orchestration layer (Claim360) connects the chain

    Roles, permissions, triggers and deadlines across the core system, and writes back to the core.

  6. Core system stays in place

    The core system you already have. Claim360 connects to it.

One layer at the base: Claim360, the orchestration layer over the core system. Portal, workflow and AI run on it. Whoever starts at the top builds on sand. And at the top stands a person.

The portal (Azori). A personal digital environment in the insurer's brand, for claimant, solicitor, handler and chain partner. Everyone sees only what their role needs: status, schedule of loss, interim payments, next step, documents, messages. The claim comes in in fields. Communication runs in the file.

The orchestration layer (Claim360). An API-first layer over the existing core system that handles roles, permissions, triggers and deadlines and writes back to the core. This is the layer that connects the parties, including the statutory portals that already work by API. Without this layer AI cannot work, because without it the file is complete nowhere.

Workflow automation. What the system knows, nobody has to watch. A few examples: a claim below the threshold with complete data goes to a decision without intervention; a medical report that comes in creates the task for the handler and starts the clock on the next step; a request for an interim payment appears straight away in the schedule of loss, with the response deadline next to it; a request for rehabilitation starts the 21-day clock of the Rehabilitation Code; a file that has been still for three weeks escalates to the team leader; a payment goes straight to the core system and the accounts after approval.

The AI layer. On a file that is right, the Claimassistent can take work off the handler's hands. The use cases we set up: summary and triage on arrival, handover and reopening; flags for missing evidence, duplicate items and running deadlines; fraud detection on unusual patterns across items, parties and history; prioritisation of the workload per handler and team; policy check and cover tested against the core system; document classification, every document on the right head of loss; reserve proposal from items, history and policy; draft communication in the insurer's tone of voice, digital and on paper; and straight-through handling on defined segments. Every proposal is explainable, every question logged; the handler sets the limits and decides outside them. The model at the top changes. The layer underneath stays.

That is the difference with AI on the current process. There, a model reads loose emails. Here, it reads a file.

And more importantly: you are ready for the future.

Whoever has the file in order is not tied to one model. The AI layer works on the principle 'bring your own LLM': the insurer never depends on a model from DCSolutions or from anyone else. The model at the top changes, the base underneath stays. If a better model, another agent or another AI model arrives tomorrow, you switch, without touching the file, the portal or the workflow. No lock-in on an LLM, and no lock-in on us.

Worked out for personal injury: personal injury in one file.

The hub of the chain

We want to be the hub of the personal injury chain, by letting every party connect once, without forcing anyone into one system.

It works like this. The claimant and the handler work in the insurer's portal. Every other party, solicitor, loss adjuster, medical expert, rehabilitation case manager, connects to Claim360 once on behalf of the insurer: through the Azori portal, or through an API on its own core system. From that moment that party is connected with every other party that has connected, at every insurer running Claim360. A solicitor with files at three insurers does not log in three times. A medical expert gets instructions in one place and the report lands straight in the right file.

  • 66possible lines between twelve parties around one serious file, today
  • 12lines to one truth, with Claim360
  • 1connection, for every insurer running Claim360

That also holds between insurers. Recoveries run today by letter and by email. Two insurers that both run Claim360 exchange a recovery file in a structured way, with the same permissions and the same audit trail.

The hub enforces nothing. The insurer decides who connects, what they see and what they have to provide. In return the chain gets one standard, one file and one truth, instead of a different portal from a different decade at every insurer.

For solicitors, medical experts and loss adjusters: connect once to Claim360.

What it delivers

Self-service is the best-known success formula of the digital world.

You track a parcel on your phone to the front door. A transfer, a repair, a tax return: you log in and see where it stands, whenever you want. Nobody calls to ask whether something has arrived. Everyone wants this, from every service, and insurers have offered it to their own customers for years. A process that used to be complicated has become transparent: the customer sees the status and knows what is expected of them. That builds trust. For a claimant with an injury more is at stake, but the need is exactly the same.

In personal injury a self-service portal does four things at once. It streamlines the process: everyone looks at the same information, and the tasks and deadlines are in that information, so at every moment it is clear whose turn it is. It builds trust: a claimant who knows where they stand does not call, and does not go looking for help through an advert. It takes the administrative load off the handler: the claim comes in in fields, the report lands in the file, searching mailboxes disappears. And it shortens the cycle time, because nobody waits any longer for an answer that is already in the file.

  • -30%on average per file in incoming phone and email traffic, and less administration
  • -80%incoming status questions
  • 1file for every party involved

The figures come from practice. The parties in the Netherlands that work with the portal today see incoming phone and email traffic per file fall by 30% on average, and with it the administration; status questions, the calls and emails about where the claim stands and whether documents have arrived, fall by about 80%. Do the maths for your own department: count a week's status questions, take 80% off, and work out how many hours go back to the claimant.

In the UK the clock makes the case. A claim in the small claims portal takes a year on average, and tens of thousands of claims sit still waiting for a medical report. A file that shows every party whose turn it is does not let a claim go dormant unnoticed. And because it is a chain problem, the gain is in the chain.

A claim in 2026

Sunday evening, 22.40. A driver is hit from behind at a red light. Pain in her neck and shoulder. She has no solicitor and makes her claim through the Official Injury Claim service on her phone. Fields, no attachments. The claim reaches the at-fault insurer through the portal's API and opens a file. She gets a page with the status and an explanation of what happens next.

Monday, 07.10. Before the handler has logged in, the Claimassistent has read the file. The policy is right, the circumstances point to full liability, no signals. The proposal is ready: admit liability in full. The handler reads it in four minutes and approves. The response is in the portal on Monday morning; the protocol allows 30 business days. She sees the next step: the medical examination.

Week three. The medical report lands, is classified and summarised. The tariff offer is drafted and the handler approves it. On the status page there is a button: 'Would you like to speak to someone?' She presses it, because she is worried about her neck. A handler calls within the hour. No queue, no menu, no 'let me just pull up the file'. The file is open, the machine has prepared the conversation. The conversation is about her.

In the same team runs a serious injury file that is three years old. Solicitor, medical experts, a rehabilitation case manager, a forensic accountant. All parties work in the same file. The new medical report landed this morning, classified and summarised. The deadlines are visible to everyone. This afternoon the handler visits the claimant at home. That is where her time goes.

Neither file produced an email.

What we ask of insurers

Take control. You are the one held liable, everything comes together with you, you decide what you need. Capture that at the front, in fields, in a portal, with a status everyone can see. That is not an IT project. It is a choice about who runs the process.

Step out of the bubble. Compare yourself with the experience of the claimant who picks up their phone on a Sunday evening, and look at what they see.

Do not start with AI. Start with the file. Put AI on a process that is right and you take off the handler's hands the work that is not about people. Put AI on the current process and you get a faster mailbox.

And keep the human where it counts. When the models are the same everywhere, the contact is the only thing that sets you apart.

Sources