The other day I was speaking with a gentleman who had great prospects of a successful claim for compensation. I advised him of this but he was a little worried that his claim might take a long time and was not sure whether to go ahead.
At The Injury Lawyers we come across this a lot – people have an idea in their head that the claims process is hard work and could take a lot of time to get settled and as such they find this off-putting. The thing is, the reality of claiming for injuries from a road traffic accident is that it is actually very straightforward in the vast majority of circumstances, and then whole claim could be done and dusted within just a few short months!
Yes, a few years ago, road traffic accident claiming could have taken a fair while. This was because the Defendant was allowed almost four months to just simply come back with their position on liability, or in other words, whether they admitted or denied fault for the accident. This was unacceptable; so from April 2010 the process was reformed. The Defendant’s insurer now only has a period of just over two to three weeks to admit or deny liability.
The process is fast and easy now. Firstly, a Claim Notification Form is submitted online via the Ministry of Justice website to the Defendant’s insurer. It sets out who was involved in the accident, what happened in the accident, when the accident happened, and a few more straightforward details. Don’t worry, your expert injury lawyer should go through this with you which should take around about 10 minutes or so to do. The Defendant’s insurer is allowed 1 business day to acknowledge the Claim Notification Form and then a further 15 business days to admit or deny liability. At The Injury Lawyers we only take on claims that we genuinely believe will be successful and find that in a lot of our claims, liability is admitted well within this time frame.
The next stage is for you to attend a medical appointment so that a legal medical report can be compiled. This will be arranged at a time and place convenient for you and should take roughly 30 minutes. It is one of the most important parts of your claim because it diagnoses your injuries and will set out how long you will suffer for. On the basis of your report, your legal expert can properly value your claim. Generally, the more severe your injury and the longer lasting your injury, the more your claim will be worth. With your permission, your medical report will be disclosed to the Defendant’s insurer and your injury lawyer can go about getting you the maximum compensation you deserve.
Give us a call today on 0800 634 75 75 and have a chat with one of our expert team who will be able to assess your claim and if you are happy with our unique way of working we can even get the ball rolling on your claim that day!
