ASSESSING PSYCHOLOGICAL INJURY IN MOTOR VEHICLE INSURANCE COMPENSATION CLAIMS: VALIDATING A CUSTOMIZED PROTOCOL

The Spanish legislation on Civil Responsibility and Motor Vehicle Insurance (Ley 30/1995) of 8 November 1995 introduced the provisions whereby plaintiffs sustaining psychological injury in a traffic accident are eligible for compensation. As plaintiff must provide evidence of the nature and degree of psychological injuries sustained in order to claim compensation, psychologists are now required to undertake three main tasks: identify and determine the psychological injury, estimate the degree of deterioration in psychological health, and detect the feigning or exaggeration of psychological injury. Hence, a scientifically validated and customized protocol for the assessment of psychological injury and the detection of feigning of in motor vehicle insurance compensation claims has been designed. This paper describes the protocol and examines a case study of injury assessment using the said protocol.