OK – so you’ve had a road accident, and you’ve ended up with whiplash – that painful, stiff feeling, achy, sore-like injury that affects your neck, shoulders, and back in most cases. You’ve just joined the many millions before you that have suffered with the same injury, caused by the jolt to your head and neck area from an impact with another vehicle (or a harsh brake, or similar).
Given just how much whiplash is in the news, you probably didn’t even need a doctor to tell you that you’ve got it. The accident you were in was not your fault, and you now want to know what you can do when it comes to claiming compensation for one of the most under-estimated injuries I’ve personally ever heard of (and felt!); and one with a wrongfully bad air of press around it.
Well – here are the answers…
To value a whiplash claim accurately and fully, you actually need expert medical evidence from an independent medico-legal consultant. Once you have a report, you need a fully qualified specialist personal injury lawyer to review the report and value your claim. Without this vital combination, you can only expect guesswork, estimates, and the poor attempts at under-qualified non-experts like those often found on the insurers side to try and give you an amount.
Whilst its not ideal, I can give you my experience and knowledge to give you a rough estimate as to how much your claim could potentially be worth, based on statistics, averages, and the third vital thing often used in valuing claims that I didn’t touch on before; the Judicial Studies Board Guidelines.
The Judicial Studies Board Guidelines (or “JSB” Guidelines”) place injuries in to brackets for the purposes of valuing them with a medical report and your expert lawyer. So, I can give you those brackets for you to attempt to “self-diagnose” yourself; but like I say, you still need the medical report and an injury lawyer to know which bracket your injury fits in with, and how much precisely your claim is worth.
For this example, here are the brackets for neck injuries according the JSB Guidelines:
Minor Whiplash Injuries
These are generally worth between £1,000.00 – £5,000.00 roughly. The majority of people suffering from a whiplash injury will fall within this category. The statistical average payout for a minor whiplash claim does fall smack bang in the middle at £2,500.00.
Moderate Whiplash Injuries
The JSB Guidelines here state approximately £5,000.00 to anywhere up to £15,000.00. You have to have been suffering for a long time, and been in quite a lot of pain, to fall within this category.
Many people will incorrectly self-diagnose themselves in this category as the safe middle ground, and many doctors will term your whiplash as “moderate” or “moderately severe”. This is separate to the brackets we use above – so don’t take the definition given by your doctor as the right diagnosis for the brackets above.
Severe Whiplash
For this, we are talking years of suffering, and a lot of pain! It’s very rare to fall within this category, and your injuries could be compensated for a sum as great as £80,000.00 or more! For this category, it’s just too difficult to give you any in between brackets. You need the experts on your case for this – there’s no doubt about it.
Valuing YOUR Claim
To have a look at what your claim could be worth, use our calculator on any page within this blog or on our main site.
Getting the MAXIMUM Compensation
To get the maximum amount of compensation, you need an independent, fully qualified personal injury lawyer to represent you for your case. Here’s a breakdown of the requirements to make sure you attain this – think of it as a checklist to use when instructing your lawyers.
- NO Middlemen – go to a lawyer direct. Do not get one through your own insurers, who will sell your claim on to a solicitor for a referral fee, and don’t go to a Compensation Direct or Accident Advice service who will also do exactly the same, as they are NOT real lawyers. These fees can be anywhere in the tune of £1,000.00 and will either come from you, your compensation, or from your service. Whichever it is, you stand to lose out.
- Genuine No Win, No Fee – this means no fees to pay if you win or lose, no deductions or percentages taken from your payout, no admin or referral fees to pay for, and fees restricted in writing to whatever is recovered from the other side.
- Experienced and Specialist Injury Lawyer – by going through a firm that only deals with injury claims, you stand to receive a bespoke and quality service, for the most obvious of reasons.
Call us on 0800 634 7575, or if you prefer why not arrange a callback from one of our team, for instant FREE advice on whether you have a whiplash claim to make!