Should you take a claim settlement or have treatment? The big question!
With many injuries, treatment like physiotherapy is often key to help you recover from any ongoing symptoms at a much faster rate. You have a duty in law to ‘mitigate your loss’ which means you must take all reasonable steps to help yourself recover as quickly as possible and keep your losses to a minimum.
But when faced with the decision to accept an offer from the other side or have physio, what’s the best option?
Dealing Direct – Warning
Firstly, if you are dealing directly with the other side, no one is there to advise you about what you should do which may well be how you have come to be asking this question! Ultimately it’s not a smart move dealing direct as research has shown people with solicitors can get four times more than those settling direct.
The insurers aren’t solicitors so they are not really qualified to advise you. Dealing direct means you likely don’t have a medico-legal report so no one can value the claim properly anyway.
It’s your decision, but here’s the advice
The role of your lawyer is to correctly advise you as to what we think is the best course of action. Ultimately, the claim is your claim and any offers to settle a case are yours to either accept or reject – it’s totally your decision. But we can tell you whether we think it’s wise to accept it or go for a higher offer, or whether we need more evidence to better value your claim.
If you don’t have any finalised medical evidence from a medico-legal expert, or none at all, we can’t really advise you. But if you do have medical evidence and you have been recommended treatment, it is normally wise to have the treatment before settling the claim. But as I say, it’s your claim, so you can choose to ignore our advice and accept any offers that are made to you, which the other side can make at anytime.
Sometimes it’s a good way of trying to save themselves money by settling as early as possible, and perhaps for less than the claim is worth…
Why can treatment be important?
If you don’t have it and you settle the claim, that’s the claim over and done with. If you find that your injuries end up being worse and more complex because you didn’t have treatment or because you settled too early, you can’t normally go back for more money. As such, you may have just under settled your claim and closed the gate for anymore privately funded treatment from the other side, leaving you on lengthy NHS waiting lists, or being refused treatment on the NHS.
If you have treatment, you may find you are still suffering and more medical evidence may be needed to support that your claim is in fact worth more than what it is based on the current medical evidence. So to protect your position, it’s better to have treatment to make sure you settle for the highest amount possible.
If I’m dealing direct can I now get a solicitor?
If you haven’t settled the claim, you should still be able to get a solicitor and do things the proper way and protect your position to make sure you settle for the highest amount; guaranteed. Just call us and we will see if we can help.
It could get you thousands of pounds more by coming to a solicitor. As I said, you could get up to four times more according to statistics; if you’ve been offered the ‘standard grand’- £1,000.00 then you could in theory be able to claim for up to £4,000.00. You never know!
I settled my whiplash claim for £6,500.00 and I very much doubt that I would have got that by going direct. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a bad case of it and still get problems now, so I’m not saying you can get as much as me; but you should be able to guarantee the max payout by getting a solicitor.