The best thing is to do start it right away. There are limitation periods that mean you only get so much time from the date of an incident or date of knowledge of negligence to pursue a claim, but you are in a far better position making it immediately for many reasons.
Let’s take a brief look at the law and the reasons why starting it early can increase your chances of winning a claim as well as help you settle a claim in a shorter time frame.
Limitation to Claim
First and foremost, I’ll quickly brief you on the law. You’ve probably heard of the phrase ‘having an accident within the last three years’ – this is because you normally have three years from the date of an accident in which to pursue the claim. There are some variations – like if you had the accident as a child you normally have until your 21st birthday in England and Wales. But generally speaking, three years is the norm for the UK.
Don’t rely on the above though – there are other factors to consider and you should always seek legal advice to find out what limitation applies to you.
Why make a claim early
Ultimately, you may stand a better chance of winning a claim and settling a claim faster by making it early for a few simple reasons:
Evidence
Evidence is fresh and hopefully still existent – like CCTV footage or the memory of a witness to an accident. CCTV footage could prove your claim and win the whole case, but most places only keep it for a few weeks. Once it’s gone, it’s gone! Even waiting a few months before starting a claim could end up costing you thousands of pounds!
People’s memories generally fade in time, and people move around, change phone numbers, etc. What if a witness gave you their information at the time of the accident, but six months down the line couldn’t either fully remember the accident, or had changed numbers, moved areas, etc. You could have just lost your star witness.
You may even forget vital information yourself which wouldn’t make you look like much of a credible witness in a claim would it?
Settling Quicker
With everything fresh in your mind, there shouldn’t be any delays in obtaining vital information and evidence that could prove your claim quickly. On top of that, we could get private medical care for you to help you recover quick. Generally speaking, a quicker recovery can lead to a quicker settlement!
Leaving it too Late
The longer you leave it, the more time you lose in being able to prepare your case. Ultimately insurers will always want to defend a claim. They don’t want to pay you out. But if the limitation date approaches, important steps need to be taken to protect your position. If we can’t settle the claim before the time limit expires, we need to issue court proceedings.
Once a case is issued with the court, there is a period of just four months to get all the evidence you want to rely upon and serve it to the other side. You may already have loads of difficulties in getting information if you started the claim a long time after the accident, and preparing a case in such a short period of time could easily lead to a weaker claim.
The other side would take advantage of this and could defend a claim more vigorously, and perhaps even ask the court to strike it out – which means an order would be produced to say you can’t pursue a claim any further. Court deadlines are strict – you don’t want to fall foul of them.
Ultimately we want to avoid the need to issue court proceedings so put the claim in right away! Never think that you have plenty of time, because in reality, you don’t!