If I was given just a penny for each time I was asked how much someone’s whiplash claim was worth, I would be a very rich man! (Well, almost!). It is one of the most common, if not the most common, questions we get asked at The Injury Lawyers.
In the vast majority of whiplash claims we deal with, the innocent victim has been involved in a straightforward accident; say someone has driven into the back of their car, or hit them head on or pulled out of a side road into them.
These are claims where it should be easy to get an admission from the Defendant because it was clearly their fault and you would have thought that the amount of compensation people get will be similar. Thing is, whiplash is a funny old injury that affects people in different ways, so the amount of compensation can differ a lot.
No-one’s whiplash injury is the same as the next persons. People who have been involved in the same accident can suffer whiplash in different ways – they might suffer longer or find the whiplash more severe than the person who was sat next to them in the car in the same accident. If someone tells you that they settled their whiplash claim for a certain amount and it sounds similar to yours, this doesn’t mean you will necessarily get the same amount of compensation.
At The Injury Lawyers we have known people to get whiplash symptoms straightaway, or in a few hours, whilst other people notice whiplash symptoms a few days later. Some people suffer whiplash for a few days, others a few weeks, and unfortunately some people suffer for several months. When valuing your claim, as a general rule, your claim will be worth more the more severe and the longer it lasts.
The only person who can properly diagnose your whiplash and let you know roughly how long they think you will be suffering is a medical expert. At The Injury Lawyers, where liability is admitted for your accident, we will set you up with a medical appointment at a time and place convenient for you, so that your whiplash can be diagnosed and a prognosis provided. This is the first step in properly valuing your claim.
The amount of compensation you can get will also depend on whether you have any other losses as a result of your accident – for example, if you have had to take time off work and have lost out on wages. The more wages you have lost, the more your claim could be worth. Another example is if you have to have treatment or medication, these costs can be recovered from the other side and will increase the value of your claim.
As a rough guide though, whiplash claims on average settle for around £2,500.00. Say if you were suffering for around about a month, your claim could well be worth at least £1,000.00. A longer lasting injury could be worth anywhere between £5,000.00 and £15,000.00, with a particularly serious whiplash claim potentially being worth just short of £100,000.00. As you can see, it really depends on how severe your whiplash is, how long you are going to suffer for, and the extent of your related losses.
If you have a whiplash injury through no fault of your own and want to know how to get compensation for this, the best advice that I can give you is to get in touch with a quality injury lawyer who will fight tooth and nail to get you the maximum compensation you deserve.
Make sure they work on a Genuine No Win, No Fee, meaning you will keep 100% of your compensation, and that they can set you up with some private medical treatment right at the start of the claim, and that they will always keep you up-to-date with the progress of your claim. Call us today on 0800 634 75 75.
