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Accident Compensation Claims
Other Categories :-
Car Insurance,
Home Insurance,
Pet Insurance,
Travel Insurance
Had an Accident? We can help.
no loans - no credit -
no catch
If you or a member of your
family has been involved in an accident through no fault of your own,
we will help you claim the financial compensation you’re entitled to.
This is a genuine cost-free, risk-free service and you keep 100% of
the award. Our experienced legal experts can help you recover
compensation and out-of-pocket expenses for injuries suffered from:
>> road traffic accidents
>> accidents in schools
>> accidents at work
>> tripping accidents
>> accidents abroad
>> defective products
This service is
completely free
Win or lose you will not pay any money to make a claim
If you win you will receive 100% of the
compensation awarded
How much
can you claim?
The amount of compensation that is awarded will be calculated to make
sure that
- you don't suffer any
financial loss now or in the future, and
- you are adequately
compensated for the pain, suffering, distress etc. of your accident,
injuries and subsequent treatment.
Assuming that your
compensation case is one of the few that gets to court (the vast
majority of claims for damages are settled out of court) and assuming
that the judge has agreed that the other party is liable, he or she
will award general damages and/or special damages in your favour.
In an effort to make sure that there is some uniformity about the
amount of damages that the courts award, the Judicial Studies Board
has set guidelines that are usually taken into account by the judges.
It is because of this that most cases are settled out of court. After
all, if liability has already been, or is likely to be, established
and assuming the amount of damages that a court is likely to award can
be predicted, then most insurers will want to limit their legal costs
by reaching a settlement with the victim without a costly court case.
General damages, even with the use of guidelines and
the precedents set by previous cases tend to be subjective. They
include an amount that is paid to you in an attempt to compensate you
for the trauma of the accident, including pain and suffering, and what
impact the accident had on your life. To put this into perspective, if
a surgeon lost a thumb in an accident then this will clearly affect
his future career, perhaps even ending it. An airline pilot, on the
other hand, will probably be able to return to duty. All else being
equal, both victims will have a claim but the surgeon can expect a
higher award, not because he suffered more but because his capacity to
earn a living from his chosen profession has effectively been
terminated.
Other variables that will be considered before awarding general
damages include how the injury affects the victim's lifestyle (did the
victim participate in sports and hobbies which are no longer
possible); has the victim's sex life or promotional prospects been
affected? Has the victim's normal family life been affected? And so
on.
Special damages are much easier to calculate. These
cover any out of pocket expenses caused by the accident including, for
example, any loss of earnings while the victim was recovering; the
cost of repairing or replacing personal possessions that were damaged
in the accident; the cost of hiring a car while waiting for repair,
the cost of repairing or replacing the car.
Depending on the details of the case, special damages may also include
the insurance excess; cost of replacing clothes; cost of travelling to
the hospital; cost of the ambulance; cost of replacing jewellery; cost
of prescriptions and treatment from private conventional and
alternative medical treatment and so on.
Whiplash injuries, sprains and stains and even trauma counselling
after the loss of a limb or impairment to any bodily function, where
the victim had to engage the services of a physiotherapist,
psychiatrist, osteopath or chiropractor all come under the heading of
special damages.
Other examples include the cost of a replacement limb (prosthetics)
private dental treatment, corrective surgery and ongoing medication.
Notes
on claiming damages
Let's assume that you have been the innocent victim of an accident.
Perhaps it was a road traffic accident, an accident at work or some
other event. But our starting point is this: the accident was not your
fault, you suffered some sort of personal injury or loss and you want
to claim compensation (damages). What's the best way to make a claim
and what does the process involve?
The first thing to understand is that you will certainly need good
legal advice. Not so much for establishing liability, which is often
fairly obvious and uncontested, but to help you through complexities
of the claims process and to make sure that you don't suffer any
financial losses as a result of the accident.
Because every accident - and, therefore, every compensation claim - is
unique, you need a qualified solicitor (preferably a member of the Law
Society's Panel of Personal Injury Specialists) with as much
experience of pursuing personal accident compensation claims as
possible.
The solicitor will look at the peculiarities of your particular case
and compile evidence of the suffering and distress caused by your
accident and subsequent treatment, the extent of your recovery, the
affect your injuries had or are likely to have on your personal and
professional life, and any financial losses that you suffered.
Some of the above is clearly subjective and may have to be argued in
court but other costs are easily proved with receipts and other
financial records. Your solicitor will also be able to give you advice
on what costs are reasonable. If the car you were driving in the
accident was a Ford Mondeo, for instance, it would not be reasonable
to hire a Rolls Royce while you're waiting for it to be repaired.
In any case, do take care to keep receipts for any expenses that
occurred as a direct result of the accident. The simple rule is 'would
I have had to spend this money if the accident had never happened?'
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