Pre-medical offers are what they say on the tin! – Offers made before medical evidence has been gathered and reviewed. In most cases such offers should be treated with caution and should only be considered if you have the advice of a personal injury specialist as the majority of the time you may run the risk of under-settling your claim.
Compensation is based on the severity of your injuries and how long these will affect your everyday life. Therefore, it is a main and pinnacle part of any claim to gather accurate medical evidence using a medico-legal report from a proper expert. This expert has a duty to the Court which ensures that they are an impartial party in the claim. In the report compiled by this expert there are often key bits of information that affect the value of your claim, which include:
- A prognosis period – which predicts how long your injury will affect you.
- Any treatment you may require.
- Effects on your ability to work.
- Effects on the your daily routine and daily living.
Based on all the above and of course any consequential losses you have occurred, a valuation of your claim will be established and consequently any offers of settlement will be based on such evidence.
Of course, pre- medical offers are offers made when none of the above information has been gathered and therefore it is clear to spot the dangers of these. Many pre-medical offers are made by insurance companies to try and get a claim off their books as soon as possible and therefore you should be cautious whenever corresponding with a company on any possible settlements. Once you have settled your claim in full and final settlement, you are not normally able to re-start the claim at a later date if you are still suffering and therefore this is the inherent risk referred to as “under settling”.
This is why it is always advisable to instruct your own personal injury solicitor to ensure that proper medical evidence is obtained to make sure your claim for compensation is totally maximised. Here at the Injury Lawyers, we only deal with personal injury and therefore have specialist knowledge on pre-medical offers and how you should be dealing with them.
