Accidents and Injury :

Beginners Guide to Compensation Claims

Claiming compensation can be a confusing process if you've never done it before (at times it can still be pretty mystifying if you've done it for 20 years!). This guide sets out a simple description of the steps that need to happen in order for the claim to go through.

Step 1 - Gathering information
We get all your information recorded including full details of the accident and any relevant witness statements. This is then produced it to the other side for  their agreement to settle your claim. If they don’t then we re assess your case when they supply their version of events and supporting documents and give you a straight forward and simple assessment of whether you will win or not.

Step 2 - Prepare your case
A key part of this is obtaining medical evidence on your injuries, your recovery and how it will affect you in the future. This would come from an experienced medical expert, who would examine you and produce an unbiased report for use by both ourselves, the other side and the Court, in valuing your case. We need to do this to find out how much your claim is worth - the more serious the injury and the graeter the loss, the more compensation you are entitled to.

Step 3 - Negotiations
Once the details of your loss are established both parties will usually try and negotiate a settlement, in order to avoid taking the case to court. If an offer of compensation is made that is acceptable to you then the case can end at that stage without ever getting to court

Step 4 - Court proceedings
Everyone panics at this one.  And in a way they should – court should be a last resort, to be used when you simply can't reach a compromise with the other side. You go to court to let the court decide on whose fault it is ("liability"), how much compensation should be paid (called "Quantum") or both.

Offers and Counter-offers
This is where it can get tricky. During the course of the negotiations the other side may make you an offer that you decide is too low. However if you later get to court and they court awards you less than this amount then you could be liable to pay the other side's legal costs from when they made the offer. This obviously ramps up the pressure to make sure you are clear how much your case is worth. We can help you through these situations and provide practical advice to help you make the right decisions.

The Time Limit
As we've mentioned before you've got 3 years to start your court case. It's therefore vital that this time limit is not missed - as soon as it is passed the other side have no liability to pay you anything. We would of course make sure that these limits cannot be missed. However you can help yourself here by coming to see us as soon as possible. We have had peope walk into our offices with a week left to go until the time limit expires!