We’ve been covering this a lot lately – simply down to the fact that most other law firms are now charging clients up to 25% of their compensation and asking for payment of an insurance fee. Why? Because our genius government decided that years and years of access to fair justice should be quashed in favour of insurance companies saving money. Whether this is down to how much money a lot of politicians seem to have in the insurance industry is a question in itself; but I digress.
April 1st 2013 saw the biggest shakeup in the personal injury claiming world ever. For the first time in a long time, the innocent victims of negligence are now expected to pay to be compensated. Whilst lawyers can still recover most of their legal fees from the other side, we can now no longer recover a Success Fee and an After The Event Insurance fee.
The Success Fee is part of our fees that reflects the risk of a case. Some are riskier than others, and we can’t win them all – so we do lose money when we cannot continue a case on a No Win, No Fee basis. This Success Fee now cannot be recovered from the other side, and this is where the 25% has come in. The reason why it’s commonly 25% is because that is the maximum a lawyer can charge a client for the success Fee.
The After The Event insurance premium is insurance we take out to protect the client from having to pay costs or things that may not be recoverable from the other side – like an expert report. So on top of the 25%, law firms are asking for payment of this insurance premium as well due to the fact it is no longer recoverable.
So it makes sense that law firms would charge clients, right? It’s not the lawyers to blame for changes in the law. But here at The Injury Lawyers, as we always have done, we like to be a little different from everyone else. This is why we can still offer you the opportunity to keep all 100% of your compensation claim.
How? Dead simple – we waive the Success Fee charge and we pay for your insurance. Essentially, we take the hit instead of you. So why are we the law firm daring to be different and going against the grain to get less money for a case in order to make sure you get more? The reason is that we don’t like charging clients. We don’t think it’s fair. So if we can find a way of making sure you are not charged, we will!
But how can we afford to do this? Well we will still receive money for the claim, it is just less than what we did before. As we specialise in injury law, we have a bespoke and efficient way of working. And we were never involved in the referral fee system that was banned on April 1st as well. This system was basically lawyers throwing millions of pounds at insurers and claims management companies to buy cases. Rather than wasting money buying claims, all our clients came to us directly.
WARNING!
So I can’t write a blog about Genuine 100% compensation without giving you some warning about the none genuine 100% compensation offers. I spoke with a person this morning who was told on the initial call that they will receive 100% of their compensation. When the paperwork came through, there was a huge percentage deduction. So there are people out there willing to reel you in with false promises, and they probably cleverly word their sales pitch as well. Things like “you won’t be billed” or “you don’t pay us anything” or “its 100% No Win, No Fee” are common and possibly misleading.
Technically, you may not get a bill or may not pay them because it’s a deduction from a payout as oppose to a payment. And what does 100% No Win, No Fee even mean? That doesn’t say 100% compensation now does it? So you have to be very careful because most law firms are charging the full 25% and as such they need other ways of trying to stand out and reel you in.
We, on the other hand, have a much better offer in our opinion – if you match our criteria for claims (commonly work accidents, public liability accidents, most slips and trips) then you should get more money because we are not going to take any of your payout away from you.
So give us a call on 0800 634 75 75 and let see if we can save you a lot of money!
