The Law Society ran a six week campaign this summer that audaciously and humorously made people aware of the dangers of settling claims without legal aid.
Law Society Don’t Get Mugged Campaign
The memorable message ‘Don’t get mugged by an insurer’, paired with a picture of a battered and bruised man dressed for Court, was accompanied by an interesting statistic. It told viewers that those who seek legal advice, rather than taking an insurance company’s first offer, get two to three times more compensation on average.
The message was also a controversial one.
Opposition
Insurers, eager to keep claimants accepting the first offer, took offence. They placed blame on the legal community for driving up insurance costs by helping people to make claims.
Some people even claimed that the image was distressing to victims of muggings. In response to six complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rejected arguments that the campaign was “defamatory and misleading”.
An ASA spokeswoman said that it was clear that the picture depicted an accident insurance claimant, rather than a victim of a literal mugging. The Law Society defended the campaign, pointing to the insurance industry’s own questioning of its code of practice concerning third party assistance.
The campaign was not ‘misleading’, considering that its claim was based on evidence from the Financial Conduct Authority. Law Society President, Nick Fluck, explained that its hard-hitting approach was due to a marketing budget that called for an eye catching, memorable campaign. ‘We are not Coca-Cola or Direct Line,’ he said. ‘Our marketing budgets are much more limited.’
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