Lawyer Maria Pittordis, a partner and head of the marine and trade division at law firm Hill Dickinson, is a specialist in holiday sickness or gastric illness claims.
She explains the background into the rise on illness claims and the legal changes that have caused it.
“There has been an explosion in gastric illness [GI] claims. It’s very much a money-making process for lawyers.
“We’re seeing not just multi-party actions from people who have been on the same cruise or stayed in the same hotel, but people who have been on different cruises, sometimes even different hotels in different resorts.
“They’re always mixed with ‘quality’ complaints. Most of these, if brought on their own, wouldn’t be awarded costs, but if mixed with GI claims in a multi-party action they’re going to recover costs as well.
“The illness is hardly ever specified. If there aren’t lab reports to show what it is, they [claimants] say it’s [an] infective bacterial or viral [agent], and that makes it expensive because you have to show implementation of processes and procedures relevant for both – and they can be very different. Claims allege it’s as a result of the food, water, hygiene of the resort or ship.
“You don’t know a claim is fraudulent – you have to look at it. But if you’re going to start investigating whether every claim is fraudulent it entails a lot of cost.
“Looking at the science can help. You have claims management companies asking ‘Have you been ill on holiday in the last two and a half years?’
“My husband received a call from one of these companies asking if he had recently been on an all-inclusive package holiday.
“He said yes. They said ‘Were you ill?’ He said no. They said ‘Are you sure?’ He said yes. They said ‘You know if you were ill you could claim up to £5,000.’ These are the kind of tactics we’re seeing.
“It seems UK holidaymakers who go to Spain become ill. Nobody else does, even in the same resort.
“Why the increase? It’s down to the lawyers. Two changes from April 1 2013 have led to the boom in claims. One is the introduction of ‘Qualified one-way costs shifting’ in personal injury claims.
“It means you [a tour operator] can win a case but you won’t get your costs unless you can show the claim was fraudulent, which is difficult, so insurance companies and tour operators are more likely to settle.
“The UK introduced an online system with fixed costs for claims over £1,000 and up to £25,000 on April 1 2013, which led the business of a lot of claims firms to dry up.
“But the online portal is only for personal injury claims in the UK. It doesn’t apply to claims outside the UK.
“So what is the best kind of claim to bring? Holiday claims. And what kind of claims can be multiplied – illness claims. That is why we’ve ended up with this situation.
“Only if we have fixed costs or [if] holiday claims outside the UK go into the online portal are you going to see these claims drying up, because that is when the lawyers will stop making money.
“We need to make it harder. If we keep settling these claims, we’re just making these lawyers richer. There has to be some forceful claims handling otherwise it’s going to go on.”
• Pittordis confirmed that from July 2018, under the EU’s new Package Travel Directive, anyone selling a ‘package’, including what is now deemed Flight-Plus, could be subject to these kind of claims.
