Your Duty to Mitigate Your Losses

If you have been involved in an accident that was not your fault, you are probably aware that you are entitled to claim for compensation for your injuries. You may not be aware that you can also claim for any financial losses that you have suffered as a result of the accident. This is because compensation is meant to put you back in the position you would have been in had the accident not have occurred; therefore, recouping your financial losses is a crucial aspect to this.

I have listed below some of the more common types of loss which you may be entitled to recover:

1. Loss of earnings
2. Treatment costs
3. Care and Assistance
4. Travel expenses
5. Miscellaneous (call charges, postage costs etc)

At The Injury Lawyers we will fight tooth and nail to recoup your financial losses – however it is not always guaranteed that you will recover 100% of them. For example, claims such as care and assistance aim to repay your carer, which can be a family member or friend, for their time caring for you, at an hourly rate. This type of claim can be difficult to quantify and therefore due to the nature of it, the other side can try to negotiate an amount.

Another reason why you may not receive 100% of your losses is if you fail to mitigate them. Mitigating your losses is an important duty on a Claimant, I will give an example to illustrate:

Joe Bloggs has suffered a back injury at work and has 6 months off work as a result. Whilst off work Joe receives Statutory Sick Pay which is a reduced rate of pay. Joe could have gone back to work after 4 months and this is reflected in his medical report upon his injuries being assessed.

In this example Joe has failed to mitigate his losses by not returning to work as soon as he was able, and it is therefore likely that the other side will dispute paying the full 6 months loss of earnings claim and would only pay for 4 months.

At The Injury Lawyers we do not like to see our clients out of pocket for any reason, hence why we advise fully on mitigating losses. If you require any further information please feel free to give us a call.