"5 Million Won Treatment Cost for Minor Vehicle Contact"... Preventing Insurance Money Leakage Due to Excessive Medical Treatment

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Announces Administrative Notice: "Basic Treatment for 4 Weeks, Diagnosis Certificate Required Thereafter"
Insurance Payments for Gyeongsang Patients Increase from 1.9 Trillion Won in 2016 to 3 Trillion Won in 2021
Frequent Cases of 10-Month Treatment Without Diagnosis Certificate Even for Simple Contact

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 6th that it has issued an administrative notice for improvements to the automobile insurance treatment standards to prevent leakage of insurance payments due to excessive treatment of minor injury patients, and that these will apply to treatments received from January 1st next year.

According to the Ministry, insurance payouts have been steadily increasing recently due to unnecessary excessive treatment of minor injury patients. Minor injury patients refer to those with injury grades 12 to 14, which include simple sprains of muscles or tendons, and facial lacerations less than 3 cm.

Insurance payouts for injuries increased from 3.3 trillion won in 2016 to 4.5 trillion won last year. During the same period, payouts for minor injuries rose more sharply from 1.9 trillion won to 3 trillion won. This contrasts with payouts for moderate injuries, which only slightly increased from 1.4 trillion won to 1.5 trillion won during the same period.

The Ministry explained, "Automobile insurance is a mandatory insurance that serves as a social safety net by guaranteeing sufficient treatment in the event of traffic accidents. However, despite minor injuries such as simple sprains, many cases have occurred where excessive settlement amounts are demanded by receiving unnecessarily prolonged treatment without supporting documents such as medical certificates."

Accordingly, the Ministry has issued an administrative notice (from July 15 to August 5) for an improvement plan to the automobile insurance treatment standards that guarantees sufficient basic treatment for four weeks after the accident, and if further treatment is needed, submitting a medical certificate will allow additional coverage for the treatment period stated in the certificate. The four-week standard was set considering the recent average treatment period of minor injury patients (21.1 days).

This improvement plan will be applied to treatments received from January 1st next year, reflecting opinions gathered during the administrative notice period.

The Ministry stated, "We will continue efforts to protect the treatment rights of traffic accident patients sufficiently while preventing the increase of national insurance premiums caused by leakage of insurance payments."