CLAIM INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

If you are involved in an accident that was not your fault you have a right to be compensated for any resulting injury or other loss. A legal framework exists to help you to obtain compensation but you will need assistance to take advantage of it.

HELP AND ADVICE

We are here to help. We offer a fast, efficient and friendly accident legal service. We can look after all aspects of your claim and do whatever work is necessary to sort it all out for you. We specialise in accident claims. We are members of The Law Society's Personal Injury Panel and of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, which are organisations only open to Solicitors who can demonstrate an expertise and experience in accident claims.

ESTABLISHING LIABILITY

In order to succeed with an accident claim you must be able to prove that the accident was caused because somebody else was at fault, usually because they were negligent. You must also prove that his negligence caused your injury and other losses. The link between the accident and your losses is called the chain of causation. A simple way of looking at it is if I had not had the accident would I have suffered this loss? If the accident is not the cause of loss you usually cannot claim that loss as a consequence of the accident.

COMPENSATION

The legal word for compensation is 'Damages'. There are two main types of damages, firstly general damages and, secondly special damages. The amount of damages that somebody can recover is determined by the extent and effect of injuries and losses. Normally damages are agreed in negotiations between the Solicitors and insurers but sometimes the Court has to step in and fix the level of damages. There are no hard and fast guidelines for the amount of damages that a Court would award and therefore it is nearly impossible to precisely predict the amount a Court will give.


GENERAL DAMAGES

General damages normally cover compensation for pain and suffering and possible future loss of earnings. We will discuss all these matters in detail with you but general damages can include the following areas: -
  • Personal injuries, pain and suffering such as cuts, bruises, broken bones, strains causing stiffness or aching, neurological problems due to damage to nerves.
  • Psychological injury, which is a clinically definable injury such as post traumatic stress disorder. Normally you cannot recover damages for simple shaking up, fear or anxiety unless you have suffered in addition physical injury.
  • Loss of amenity which usually means that your injury has prevented you from pursuing your normal activities such as housework, sports, hobbies, leisure pursuits, domestic work, loss of holiday enjoyment, and of course, your sex life.
  • Disability on the labour market, which means that because of your injury, you might find it difficult to obtain employment on the labour market in the future if you were to be compared with someone with similar qualifications and experience but without your injury.
  • Employment problems such as where you have been passed over promotion because of your injuries or you have to find another job. You may have lost employment protection rights and therefore will not have protection from unfair dismissal or any right of compensation for redundancy for the first year.
  • Future loss of earnings where you have still not returned to work or where you have had to take a job at a lower pay at the time that the case is settled or when the case comes to Court.

SPECIAL DAMAGES

Special Damages normally covers financial losses such as travel costs, prescriptions, loss of earnings etc. up to the date of trial. It is important that you keep precise details of special damages including receipts and any other relevant paperwork.
  • Past loss of earnings including any other losses resulting from the accident such as loss of overtime, bonuses, commission, pension contributions, holiday pay etc.
  • Travel expenses such as travel costs to hospital, to see your doctor, for physiotherapy, seeing your Solicitors and any other travel costs that you had to make because of the accident.
  • Damage to clothing whether it just needs dry cleaning or repair, or if it is ripped or damaged beyond repair.
  • Prescriptions and painkillers for costs of medicines and indeed any other medical treatment that you required.
  • Care/attendance costs to cover the costs of people looking after you and caring for you due to the accident/injuries.
  • Additional home costs such as extra gas and electricity for heating and lighting your home whilst off work.
  • Maintenance and D.I.Y. costs to cover the costs of housework, gardening and decorating.
  • Future care costs if you need to be looked after on a more permanent basis in the future.
  • Purchase of special equipment such as special pillows or beds.
  • Special housing costs or needs such as if you were seriously disabled, the cost of a stair lift or the cost of extending or re-arranging your house to make it easier for you to cope with your disability.

INTEREST

It is usually possible to claim interest on the damages for past losses but not on future losses such as future loss of earnings or future medical treatment. Currently the Courts allow interest payable at 6% per annum on special damages from the date of loss and 2% on general damages from the date of service of proceedings.

MITIGATION OF LOSS

We aim to recover as many of the losses that you have reasonably incurred. However, you are not entitled to sit back and let your losses accumulate. You must take reasonable steps to keep your losses to an absolute minimum in other words to mitigate your losses.

INTERIM PAYMENTS

In serious injury cases where the medical reports are not able to give a definite future idea of your injury (prognosis) it is possible for the Courts to order an interim payment. However the Court can order that the interim payment be repaid with interest in certain situations.

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS

It may be that as a result of your accident that you become entitled to certain Social Security and State Welfare Benefits either on a temporary or permanent basis. We advise that you arrange to pop in to your local Welfare Rights or the Citizens Advice Bureau to get your potential Social Security benefit entitlement checked out.

RECOUPMENT OF STATE BENEFITS

The Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) is an agency of the Department of Social Security and it monitors the amount of Social Security Benefits that you receive as a result of the accident.

If you receive compensation for pain and suffering then any Social Security Benefits paid to you will not be deducted. If, however, you receive compensation for any financial losses that you have suffered, then any Social Security Benefits that you have received will be deducted. This prevents you from being compensated twice, for example, for any loss of earnings claim that you might be making.

EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS

It may be that you have lost your employment as a result of the accident. If you are able to demonstrate that your loss of employment arises wholly and reasonably as a result of the injuries you sustained in the accident it may be possible to claim compensation from the third party. Any employment, redundancy or dismissal claim must be pursued within 3 months of dismissal or the right to pursue the same will be lost and if it appears that your dismissal was not caused by your injury but instead by your employers failure of duty to you then you would not be able to recover damages from the third party. It is therefore essential that you draw to our attention immediately any dismissal or redundancy situation that arises.

TIME LIMITS

There are usually three years from the date of the accident to bring a claim for compensation. There are exceptions to this for example a child has until their 21st birthday in which to make a claim (three years from the date that they become an adult). Another exemption is that you can claim compensation three years from the date when you first realised you had suffered any injury, which can sometimes be different from the date you had the accident. This could be many years later and it can cause problems with evidence and records and witnesses many no longer exist and memories will be less reliable.

KEEP EVIDENCE

It is important that you keep as much evidence as possible relating to the claim particularly in relation to the injuries that you have sustained and your financial losses. This can be best done by keeping a diary in which you should record details ideally on a daily basis of the physical problems that you are having caused by your injuries and of course record all expenses incurred. There will come a time when we will ask you to provide us with a lot of detailed information about the nature of the injuries that you have sustained and the financial losses incurred and if you are keeping it all in one place in a diary then this makes things simple and easy. It is also important that you keep evidence of your financial losses in the form of receipts, letters, and any other relevant documentation.

COSTS

If we take on and deal with your case we make sure that you will never have to pay any legal costs as we make sure that we recover these and get paid in full by your opponents and their insurers. 
Technically however, in most cases if you win your case there is no guarantee that all the legal costs incurred will be paid by the insurers. The insurers will only pay costs on a 'Standard or Indemnity Basis' and within certain Court scales and in Road Traffic cases fixed costs. 'Standard basis' costs means an entitlement to costs that the Court feels are reasonable. The 'Indemnity' costs are all those costs incurred whether they have been reasonably incurred or not.   The County Court scales provide that if you receive compensation of less than £1,000 then normally very few costs can actually be recovered.  If you recover compensation in excess of £1,000 then there is usually not a serious problem in recovering costs.

WHO PAYS THE COMPENSATION

This can vary. Normally, if you make a claim against an individual or a company or against the Local Authority then they have insurance cover so it usually ends up as the insurers who pay. However sometimes your claim might be against an uninsured or untraced motor driver in which case the Motor Insurers Bureau might pay. It may be that you have suffered criminal injuries in which case a claim can be made against the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. We will advise you in detail over who can be sued and who is in a position to pay.

VALUING YOUR CLAIM

The legal jargon for valuing your claim is called 'quantum'. It is difficult to accurately value your claim until a certain amount of information is available such as exactly what your injuries have been, what kind of treatment you have had, whether you are likely to have any problems with your injuries in the future, the extent of your past and future financial losses. It can take some weeks and months to gather all this information together. General Damages are assessed by reference to the Judicial Studies Board Guidelines and from previous case law. Special Damages are assessed by the amount of detail and evidence that you have provided previously.

HOW LONG WILL THE CASE TAKE

It is very difficult to provide any kind of accurate estimates on how long a case will take. Much depends on critical issues i.e. whether liability is in dispute, how serious your injuries are. Often it is best to delay settling a claim until you have made a good or full recovery from your injuries, which in some cases can take many months if not years. If a case goes to a full Court hearing it can take up to one or two years.

AND FINALLY

If you have read this far and understood everything that has been written you have done very well! This information is not meant to be a substitute for a firm of solicitors giving you comprehensive accurate advice in straight layman's terms.

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We act for clients on accident claims across the UK.

ACCIDENT SPECIALISTS

We are not a middleman claims company.  We are specialist accident compensation claim Solicitors.  We are friendly, sensitive and professional.  We will always fight on your behalf and make sure your claim is dealt with quickly and ensure that you receive the maximum amount of compensation. We are Members of the Law Society Personal Injury Panel.