Being in an accident and sustaining an injury may lead you to incur financial losses. For example, you may have to take time off work or fork out on someone to give you a helping hand around your house. These are what we call ‘losses’, or “Special Damages”. After all, you may have lost out on some of your wages or you may be out of pocket because you have had to pay for a helping hand. At The Injury Lawyers we are well aware that these losses are not your fault – they are instead a consequence of your accident and the injuries you have suffered. Because they are not you fault, and instead the fault of the negligent third party, at The Injury Lawyers we will try and recover these losses so that you do not end up out of pocket through no fault of your own. So what can you claim for? Here is a quick guide as to a few of the losses we can attempt to recover for you:
Loss of Earnings
Sometimes your injury will require you to be off work in order for you to recover. In this time it is likely that you will receive less income than you normally would because you are unable to work. Depending on the sick pay scheme of your employers, we will make a claim on your behalf for all the loss of earnings you have suffered as a result of your accident. For example, if you receive £300 a week, and you company paid you sick pay of £150, we will make a claim for that outstanding £150 deficit you have suffered as a result of your accident meaning you could not work.
Care and Assistance
If, as a result of your accident, you have needed care or assistance with all sorts of everyday tasks that you would normally be able to carry out yourself, we are able to make a claim on your behalf for the costs of that care and assistance. So, for example, if you have had someone in or had a relative to help you with bathing, getting to and from the toilet, general household chores, meal preparation and shopping etc, we can make a claim for these people to be reimbursed for their time.
Travel Costs
Although we always try to make sure that your medical appointments are as local to you as possible so that there is as little disruption as possible to yourself, we also appreciate that you may incur some travel expenses. This may be a bus or taxi fare, or the petrol costs of the relative who took you to your appointments. Again, we will try and recover as much of these costs as possible. In order to help us do this, please keep all travel receipts and a note of where you travelled to and from so that we can accurately calculate your losses.
Medication Costs
Your injuries may mean that you have had to buy extra medication. If you keep a record of all the purchases of medication you have made we will try and get these back for you.
Miscellaneous Expenses
At The Injury Lawyers we are well aware that you like to know what is going on with your claim and may ring in to get an update on the progress of your case. We also realise that sometimes we do request that you post information to us. This costs money. As such we will always try and recover your postage and telephone costs as a general “miscellaneous expense”.
If you have sustained any sort of loss as a result of your accident, please let us know and we will be able to advise you on how we can go about getting back the money you may be owed.
