Very common question we get here at The Injury Lawyers; but the answer is not so easy to give you. I will try and be brief with this blog so you can get an insight in to how we find out what your claim is worth, and why I can’t tell you now!
There is only one foolproof way to value a claim for personal injury compensation – by seeing a qualified medico-legal expert who produces a report, and by having an expert personal injury solicitor to assess the report and value the claim.
This is the way to truly find out how much the claim is worth.
The information in the report is then matched with the Judicial Studies Board Guidelines (the official guidelines that are used when valuing claims) to look at what sort of compensation you are legally entitled to receive. It’s also based on case law (previous cases with similar injuries) and also the quality of the medical expert and your solicitor can have a hand in things too. You need a quality report that details all of the suffering and inconvenience the injury has caused you, and an expert personal injury lawyer to know how to maximise the settlement using their in-depth knowledge and years of legal experience.
The gist for you is this – the more you suffer, the more we get for you.
On top of that, we need to look at any losses incurred as a result of the accident. How much earnings you have lost as a result of your injuries, and what medical and travel expenses you have incurred to date, for example. Any loss caused as a result of the accident, where reasonable, can be claimed back.
So if you call me up or log on to our chat facility and say to me “I’ve had whiplash, the medical report says my prognosis is 9 months, how much is my claim worth?” – is that enough to tell you? Sadly not; we would need the report in front of us and need a detailed history of the accident and the affects the injury has had on you. We would need to look at your losses to take those in to account as well.
So could you send us a report and ask us to value the claim? Well yes, I suppose you could; but naturally we would have to be instructed as your lawyers to actually spend the time and money on valuing the claim and advising you. We are paid for our legal work from the other side, so if you’re asking us to value the claim for you as a second opinion, I’m afraid we would need to be instructed as your official legal representative to allow us to be paid for the work that we do.
