If you have been involved in an accident where you have sustained an injury through no fault of your own, you may well be entitled to compensation. For example, if you have been involved in a road traffic accident whereby a negligent third party driver has gone in to the rear of your vehicle, and you have sustained whiplash, in all likelihood you will be entitled to compensation for your injuries.
Although you may not be aware that you are entitled to compensation, there is no doubt about it that the other side’s insurers are fully aware of your position. As such, they may somewhat, out of the blue, get in touch with you and offer to settle your claim with you direct. They may offer you £250, £500, or maybe even £750. At first instance, this may seem attractive; after all, you were not expecting any compensation, and you think that the offer sounds great. But please take a step back for a minute. Should you not look into how much your injury is actually worth? Why not get in touch with a quality injury lawyer who may inform you that, actually, your whiplash injury is worth over £1,000?
The process where the other side gets in touch with you and settles your claim directly with you is called ‘third party capture’. This is because the other side have settled your claim for compensation in full and final settlement and you cannot go back and ask for more if your injuries have worsened, and you have not recovered. That is it – your claim is finished. At The Injury Lawyers, we have people ringing up each week asking us about their potential claim for compensation, only for us to have to break the bad news that they have under-settled their claim, and that there is nothing we can do about it. What we ask is that if you receive an offer for compensation, you ask yourself why they are making this offer, and where they came up with the amount. Are they doing it out of the kindness of their heart, and because they care about your suffering? Or are they doing it because they know that if they can get you to accept their offer, they have saved hundreds, if not, thousands, of pounds in not paying the true amount of compensation they would have had to have paid you with an expert injury lawyer on your side. I believe the latter is the most likely.
If you have been offered compensation by the other side, give The Injury Lawyers, or at least another quality injury lawyer, a call today to discuss your potential claim for compensation. Our advice is free and it does not come with any obligations – so you have nothing to lose. Even if you decide not to instruct us to deal with your claim, at least it will hopefully be one less instance of where the victim of a third party’s negligence is left under-compensated.