Starting any claim can be a daunting prospect for many people; but, there always seems to be more reluctance and fear surrounding accidents at work as many worry it will affect either their current employment or their employment in the future. Hopefully this blog will put some minds at ease. If you have been injured through no fault of your own in the workplace, your injuries may be extremely debilitating and lead to losses that you just can’t afford.
Making a claim may well be the only option to take…
Pursing an accident at work claim should NOT affect your employment status as the law does protect you for making a claim. In most cases, if the company is quite large, employers may encourage people to do get a lawyer and make a claim. This is because all employers are required to take out insurance to cover just this type of thing, and many big companies will have been sued several times over. The majority of the time it is not that person you work with everyday that will be pursued, as most places just pass the letter of claim across to their insurers and it is them that deals with the entire process.
So what type of things would we need to know on that initial call to advise on your potential to claim?
Some basic essentials of course include:
- Your details
- Your employers details
- Medical details
Then we seek to establish the scene of your accident. To do so we require:
- The date of the accident (this is incredibly important as in general you have 3 years to pursue a claim from this date before being statutory barred from doing so)
- An estimated time
- Location
- Details of any witnesses
- Details of any past training you have received and experience in the job role.
- Whether the accident has been report and if so to whom
- Whether the accident was logged in an accident report book.
In some more complicated cases, it may be necessary to request a sketch map of the area where your accident occurred, although this is usually gathered later on in the case. Photos may be useful if this is applicable and if you are able to acquire any.
The importance of an estimated time is relevant when it comes to the possibility of existence of CCTV. CCTV can be extremely important for any claim! At the end of the day, the camera never lies; so if you are aware that this exists, it is always recommended to request this as soon as possible to evidence your accident (but also inform us so we can request it on your behalf too). Also, a copy of the accident report form is always going to be helpful.
So if you have had an accident at work and have as a result been injured, call us on our free claims line on 0800 634 75 75 and one of our new claims team will happily talk through the process. Of course in some accidents some of the above is more relevant than others but we will always seek to give you an instant decision there on the phone whether we can act on our genuine No Win No Fee.
