27 March 2018, Alberto Perez Cedillo

Online claims in Spain – finally!

The General Council of Spanish Advocates and the Spanish Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Institutions have developed, together with an IT company, a platform allowing lawyers to safely communicate online with the insures of the vehicles involved in road traffic accidents. Over 90% of the insurance companies are already using this new platform, in use from 1 January 2018.The platform allows Claimants’ lawyers the online processing of their clients’ claims against the insurers. It favours the extrajudicial settlement of the claims, which benefits both parties and reduces the massive backlog of Spanish courts.

SdP-Lex has been developed in such a way that guarantees the identity of the parties when they communicate and allows them to submit and receive in a secure, immediate and standard manner all case documents. It also registers all communications in order to easily trace the development of the case.

The platform issues proof of the issuing of the claim, the offers received, and the reasoned responses to those offers, in addition to sending acknowledgement of receipt to the sender. Furthermore, the system fully complies with all the applicable regulations as to data protection and competition law.

This will finally ensure claims can be handled in a cost-efficient manner within the Spanish jurisdiction.