OIC turns 4
Sara Errington, Customer Operations Manager, looks back over the past 4 years of the OIC.
Today, as the Official Injury Claim service turns 4, I find myself looking back at the milestones and successes since launching back in 2021 and wondering where the time has gone!
However, aside from all the policy-driven events and developments surrounding the portal during the past four years, there’s a large part of the service that I am most proud of and continue to be, and that is our hard-working and passionate Portal Support Centre (PSC) team. In March this year, I shared a lengthy news post on this topic which highlights all the great work that goes on behind the scenes at OIC. If you have yet to read it yet, I implore that you do as it will also add some narrative to the data we have shared publicly on our social media channels today, not only in celebration of the service but also the valuable support work that the PSC team provides.
Where we are now
As we enter the fourth year of OIC, we find ourselves in a stable and ‘BAU’ position as a service with regard to technological change in the portal - the only exception of course being essential updates following the Tariff increase.
We continue to share MI reporting both monthly and quarterly, send important updates via our newsletter and are always looking at ways to refine and enhance what we share externally in these areas, to best inform our stakeholders.
The data continues to tell a positive story, with over a million claims now entered into the system – over 112,000 of which unrepresented - brining the 12 month average of unrepresented users making a claim to 12%. With over 20,000 claims per a month on average since launch and over £457m paid out to claimants – there’s no arguing that the service continues to work and provides a safe and secure route for people to submit a personal injury claim without the need for representation.
We continue to support
Just prior to turning four, we launched our upgraded website (not portal) which saw us introduce valuable improvements for users that visit the site, sometimes on a daily basis. We shared some of the new functionality with our unrepresented users which can be found here. Additionally, the Help Hub resource area also underwent some enhancements to ensure users can access support information quickly and easily. We will continue to update and add to the resource in this area of the website periodically.
We’re still listening
We continue to reach out regularly for feedback, taking on board the needs of our users and respond to any incoming enquiries too. If you are a professional user or stakeholder of OIC and wish to share your opinion with us directly, we welcome you to either get in touch via our customer services team and/or fill out the OIC industry feedback form with your views here.
Looking forward…
Moving ahead, we have a number of considerations which will, depending on some outcomes outside of our control, affect the build and operation of the portal. We are in ongoing dialogue with the MoJ on the following considerations:
- How, as a service, we deal with dormancy within the portal
- Moving more of the API's to single-click API's
- Decommissions of old API's to streamline the service
All of the above considerations could result in changes which will affect end users and while we acknowledge that change is disruptive for all of us, change will indeed need to happen. We will ensure that adequate time is provided for us to build and then release code for A2A users to make changes, as well as inform all users of changes to the portal flow, as required.
We will communicate directly with all our user groups in due course, providing details and timelines of any proposed changes to the portal, and will also share any updates surrounding these changes via our news blog and social channels.
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