It’s both terrifying and tragic to see the effects some injuries can have on a person’s life. When we talk of serious injury claims, a lot of people lean toward looking at permanent physical or mental disability; but facial disfigurement claims can have one heck of an impact on the victim’s life.
Let’s look at what we assess when it comes to the awards for these sorts of claims and we’ll take a look at the official guidelines for payouts for these types of cases.
Firstly, some useful advice
If you want to make a claim for personal injury compensation, look at doing it sooner rather than later, and take the following as general advice that can assist you with a claim in the long run:
Claim Immediately
Claim fast so we can look at whether private surgery or treatment would help your recovery. If it can, we can look to try and get the other side to fund it. This may increase your chances of a better looking outcome.
The wonders and miracles of modern medical science can achieve great things when it comes to facial disfigurements – but it costs money and may not be readily available on the NHS. If we need to get the other side to pay for it to give you the best shot or returning to normality, we’ll fight for it!
Take Photos
I appreciate you probably don’t want to, but taking photos to show how scarring and disfigurement changes can really help. The more evidence we can have to prove your claim, the better chance you stand at allowing us to get you the best payout possible. I’m sure you’d much rather the disfigurement just disappear, and I’m sure you don’t want photos of the damage, but it can all help when making a claim.
Keep a Diary
Keep a diary of how the injury has affected you on all levels. We’ll be using evidence from experts in fields such as plastic surgery and psychology for the mental trauma caused. Keeping a diary puts you in a good position when you explain to them the affects this injury has had on your life.
How we assess the claim
We assess the claim based on many things, such as:
- Your sex (because the payout does vary between males and females)
- You’re age
- The nature and extent of treatment
- The effects on social, romantic, domestic, and work life
- The psychological impact
We ascertain all of this using the medical expert reports from the appointments we’ll arrange for you. That’s why the advice above about how you can help yourself to this regard is, in my opinion, very useful for you to read.
When it comes to lost earnings, disfigurement can mean you can no longer work in the capacity you used to. For want of a better example, a model would of course have difficulties returning to employment, but where your employment demands that you interact with people a lot, many feel they cannot return. School teachers, salespeople, or public speakers for example may feel they can no longer continue their employment. We take this seriously, and we can recover lost earnings where appropriate, both future and past.
Claim Valuations
Aside from losses and expenses, the information below can be reflective payouts for the injury alone:
Very Severe Scarring – where the victim is likely aged 30 or below and the physical and psychological impact of the scarring is permanent and significant:
- Males: £21,000 – £47,000
- Females: £34,000 – £70,000
Less Severe Scarring – where the impact both physically and psychologically is still significant, but not as disfiguring as the above:
- Males: £13,000 – £21,500
- Females: 21,000 – £34,000
Significant Scarring – where the worst effects can be reduced or largely resolved through plastic surgery or treatment, leaving some cosmetic disfigurement and psychological impact. Scars may be visible at conversational distance, for example:
- Males: £6,500 – £13,000
- Females: £13,000 – £21,500
Less significant scaring which can be covered up or only visible on close inspection can attract awards ranging from £1,000 to £10,000 or so – but it really depends on the stuff outlined above about how we assess the claim.
As you can see, there’s quite a difference between males and females, but it is all a lot down to the individual and how it has impacted their own life. The best thing to do is get a specialist personal injury lawyer like us to make sure you are guaranteed the maximum compensation payout.
For advice, call us on 0800 634 75 75.
