Okay, so you’ve had a road accident and you were not at fault – perhaps you have been hit in the back, or another driver has pulled out on you from a side road, for example. Whatever the circumstances, you may be eligible to compensation if the accident was not your fault and you have been injured as a result.
Whiplash is a common injury from these sorts of incidents, and if you want to know what you need to be able to start a claim for personal injury compensation, read on!
What information do I need?
The absolute key thing is the registration number of the driver at fault. If you have their name and a contact address or telephone number, then that can be helpful as well. But the absolute key thing is the registration number because, with that, we can search the Motor Insurers Database for their claims contact.
It is a requirement in England and Wales for registrations to be held on the Motor Insurers Database to allow us to find the correct claims contact to pursue a claim. Other than that, we need to confirm some basic information from you about your injuries, vehicle damages, and other basic things to allow us to complete a Claim Notification Form to submit to the insurers.
Submitting this claim form is what starts the process for the case.
What if I don’t have the registration number?
If you have an insurer identity and a claims reference or policy number then we can use that if need be. If you have any way of getting hold of the registration number then you are encouraged to do so as this is still ultimately the key thing needed.
What if the police took all the details?
I encourage you to contact the police and request the information. Whilst we can do this for you, and we are quite happy to do so, it will likely take months and months for us to get hold of the registration number if we try and obtain it.
All we can do is write to a central collision unit however the turnaround between contact and receipt of the details we need – can be months! We can’t even speak to them using the telephone anymore, so all we can literally do is keep writing to them.
That means – if you want your case sorting sooner rather than later then you are encouraged to get the registration number as it means we can normally initiate a case right away!