One of the most common, if not the most common, questions we face at The Injury Lawyers is: ‘How much is my claim worth?’ This, however, is not a question we, let alone anyone, can answer with certainty straightaway. It is impossible to immediately value your claim. How come? Well, we don’t know when your injuries will heal for example. An injury that lasts two years will be worth more than the same injury that lasts one year, for example. But we do not know when you will fully recover at an early stage. What we can do however is give you a guideline figure as to the value of your injury.
So how do we do this?
A good starting point is the Judicial Studies Board (or ‘JSB’) guidelines on general damages (compensation for your injury alone) for personal injury. These provide an excellent indication of the value of your claim. These guidelines allow us to begin to value your injury by providing examples as to how much a head injury, facial injury, back injury, neck injury, leg injury or foot injury may be worth. The guidelines are based on previous compensation awards made by the courts. Importantly, the JSB guidelines are not law. If you receive £4,000 and the JSB guidelines suggested you may be entitled to £4,500, it is not a matter of fact that you should have received that extra £500. However, what can be said with certainty is that the professional injury lawyers at The Injury Lawyers will always seek the maximum compensation for you.
Here are some examples from the JSB guidelines:
- A Minor Whiplash Injury could be worth up to £5,000
- A ‘Simple Fracture’ or ‘Soft Tissue Injury’ could be worth £5,750
- A serious broken nose requiring an operation could be worth anything between £6,750 and £14,750
- A simple broken nose could be worth £1,100
Already we can see that the value of your injury depends on the seriousness of your injury, the type of treatment needed, and the length of time your injury lasted. Compensation is awarded to put you back in the position you would have been had you not have been involved in an accident and not have sustained the injury you did. So if someone tells you they were involved in an accident and suffered a broken leg and received a certain amount of compensation, and you later suffer the same injury and receive a different amount of compensation, this will likely be due to the fact you may have had different treatment or you have recovered from the injury sooner or later.
The important thing is that if you have been involved in an accident and suffered a personal injury through no fault of your own, you should contact a personal injury lawyer for free legal advice. This is the first step in you obtaining the maximum compensation you deserve.
