At some point you may have an accident and you will be approached by someone from the side at fault who will want to settle your claim for personal injury compensation directly with them.
They’ll say thingls like “you can cut out the middleman lawyer” and save time by settling directly really fast. They’ll sometimes also tell you that they’ll give you a little extra for not using a law firm.
But the truth is this – you are statistically, logically, and probably going to under settle your claim, potentially by thousands of pounds, by settling directly.
You may say I’m biased because I work for a personal injury law firm. You may get suckered in to the insurer’s catchy quips when they try and convince you to settle directly. So to help you make an informed decision about my claim that you are probably going to end up with less money, read on.
How a claim is valued
You need a report from a suitably qualified medical expert and a specialist personal injury lawyer to properly value your claim. Anyone with a little insider knowledge can tell you that the average whiplash claim is worth around £2,500, or that a four week minor injury claim is probably worth around £1,000. But only a qualified solicitor armed with a report can tell you exactly what your claim should be worth.
So, settling directly – either you don’t have a medical report, or the insurers you are dealing with directly got one for you.
If you don’t have one, then you don’t have any evidence to properly value the claim. An account from your GP or your medical records in no way counts, as this is not medico-legal evidence. There is no medico-legal expert who is qualified to stand up in a court of law and give a medico-legal opinion about the case.
As such, you have no evidence in which to accurately value your case. So if the insurers are wanting to settle directly with you, they are basing their valuations on guesswork and estimations. On top of that, remember that they are private profit making organisations who have a duty to their shareholders, not to you. They will do all they can to limit payouts to maintain their profit margins.
If they have secured a medical report for you then you should still be very worried. The experts that insurers use are often nowhere near as good as the ones who we as expert personal injury lawyers use. They also could be more inclined to the insurers if they do a lot of reports for insurance companies.
Even worse is this: once the insurers have seen that report, that’s it – they’ll want to stick by it if they like it. With a lawyer we can scrutinise a report and get a new one if needed.
Will they give you more for not using a law firm?
Why would they? – insurers only ever want to pay out what they have to, and not a penny more. Our legal fees are only around £500 or so for many cases, so if they give you an extra £500, you’re still probably losing out. Why? Because statistics have shown that lawyers can get you four times more when you negotiate a claim the proper way. So unless they are going to pay you four times more, which then could be the true amount of the claim, you’re potentially losing out. And the fact that the statistics show it’s four times is evidence enough in a way.
So it IS best with a lawyer?
Of course it is – if you want to receive the actual maximum amount of compensation you are legally entitled to recover then get a lawyer and do things the proper way. Don’t get suckered in to the insurers’ attempts to save themselves money when they want you to settle directly.
Again, you could call me bias – but we get a lot of calls from people who have gone down the path of no return when they have settled their claim too early and for too little and then want a lawyer to help them get more.
But once it’s settled, it’s settled – getting any more out of them will be very hard to do indeed. All I can do is give you the facts and the warnings; what you wish to do with that is entirely your choice.
But lawyers are by no means middlemen at all – we’re your access to justice and the key to a maximum compensation settlement which is what you are entitled to have.
