How much compensation is my whiplash claim worth? This is a common question that many of our clients ask here at The Injury Lawyers. To answer this question with any accuracy is extremely difficult at the early stages of a claim – although we can often give ball park figures using our extensive experience in the area of whiplash claims.
Valuing your whiplash claim…
The reason why valuing a whiplash claim can be difficult at this stage is due to the fact that we have to value a claim using a medical report which is obtained after liability has been admitted on your claim. This medical report not only assesses your injury, but also details the effects it has had on all areas of your life – areas such as professional, social, and domestic life.
In addition to this, the length of time suffering with your whiplash injury is also an important factor in valuing your claim. Often when people start claims they are suffering on an ongoing basis, therefore making it difficult to know when they will recover, and hence how much their claim could be worth.
In summary, we can see that valuing your claim at the early stages can be difficult, and nothing can be said with any certainty. There are, however, actions which you can take to ensure you maximise the value of your whiplash compensation claim.
Maximising your whiplash compensation…
A big topic in the news recently has been insurance companies and the sale of their customers information to personal injury referral agencies and/or law firms after an accident has occurred.
This issue was brought to light after a constituent of Jack Straw was bombarded with texts and calls after he had suffered an injury in a road accident. Following an investigation, Jack Straw uncovered the fact that insurers sell their customers information to claims companies and lawyers for a fee. In many newspapers such as The Guardian this has been reported as a ‘racket’ being run by the insurers for profit.
It highlights an issue which at The Injury Lawyers we have been writing about for some time – the issue being Legal Expense Insurance (LEI), or sometimes called Motor Legal Protection. LEI is often attached to insurance policies, and you are told it covers legal costs if you bring a claim for personal injury after an accident. Now, this may be true; however, if you go to any reputable no win no fee law firm (depending on the agreement), this is the case anyway; plus, often with LEI, you pay for the privilege of having it on your policy – so you may be paying for an extra you do not really need.
The way LEI often works is that insurers will refer your claim to law firms for anything up to £1,000 per claim, as reported in The Telegraph recently. This means that law firms have reduced the profit they can make on your claim, and in order to redress this balance, law firms may then work less on your claim to maximise their slim profit margins as much as possible.
This may mean they maximise their own profits, but not your compensation – they may not be willing to fight tooth and nail to get you the best possible settlement amount, because they can’t afford to do so having wasted a huge amount of money on obtaining your claim from your insurers.
So, one of the best ways to maximise your compensation is to go direct to a law firm who you have researched yourself.
Don’t get caught up in the “racket” and potentially lose out on a quality legal service.
