Making a Road Accident Claim – The process

Claiming for compensation where you have been injured in a relatively minor road traffic accident can be quite a straightforward and fast process.  A couple of years ago your claim could have taken well over six months; but, since April 2010 the time taken to get your compensation is now estimated at a couple of months.  This is because a new protocol for low value personal injury claims arising from road traffic accidents has been introduced which has considerably speeded up the compensation process for any accidents occurring on or after 30^th April 2010.

Once you have instructed a quality and expert injury lawyer who regularly deals with road traffic accident claims, and has years of experience with winning them, a Claim Notification Form will be submitted online on your behalf to the other side’s insurers.  The Claim Notification Form is a straightforward document which notes your details, the details of the vehicles involved, outlines the accident and the injuries you received as a result, and the reasons why we are alleging fault for a claim.  If you are unsure how to complete this at any time, do not worry – your injury lawyer will be on hand to help you and guide you through filling it in.  Once completed, it is submitted electronically to the other side who have one business day to acknowledge receipt.

Once the other side’s insurers receive the Claim Notification Form they are allowed a period of 15 business days in which to formally admit or deny liability.  At The Injury Lawyers we only take on claims we genuinely believe will be successful, so in this 15 day period we fully expect an admission of liability.  What’s better, even though the other side have 15 days to respond, they could well admit liability within 1 or 2 days, meaning you are even closer to quickly obtaining the compensation you deserve.  Under the old system, the other side had a period of 21 days to acknowledge your claim and then a further 3 months to investigate it.  Now, they have just over two weeks to admit or deny liability.  This is why your claim for compensation is far from arduous and can be over in a few short simple weeks.
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Occupier’s Liability Claims

The term Occupier’s Liability may sound complex, but its meaning is fairly simple to explain. There are two Occupier’s Liability Acts; the one relevant for our discussions in this blog is the Occupier’s Liability Act 1957.  It is this act which offers protection to the ‘lawful visitors’ of premises rather than trespassers with which the other Act deals. The act states that the Occupier has a duty to ensure its visitors will be reasonably safe when visiting its premises. Contrary to how the name sounds an Occupier need not actually occupy the premises as such; an occupier is simply the person(s) who have overall physical control over the premises. A good way to illustrate this is with the following examples of Occupier’s liablity claims:

• An item falling on you from a poorly stacked shelf in a supermarket – this may be a strong claim for personal injury and would be directed against the supermarket.
• Slipping on a spillage in a night club – if you have been injured as a result, this too may be a claim and would be directed against the nightclub.

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Whiplash Claims Guide

At The Injury Lawyers we have a vast amount of experience in whiplash claiming, and so are fully aware of the debilitating effect it can have on a person’s life. That is why we treat the condition with the seriousness that it deserves, fighting tooth and nail to get our client’s the best possible amount of compensation they are entitled to receive.

Causes

At The Injury Lawyers we tend to see whiplash most commonly as a result of road traffic accidents as the injury is commonly caused through a jolt to the head / neck area. It is common for people not to report injury at the scene of an accident, but to suffer whiplash later on as the symptoms, which I will discuss below, usually become apparent a few hours later, or even the following day or sometimes longer.
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Work Accident Claims

If you have been injured at work through no fault of your own, you may well have a successful claim for compensation.

Your employers have an important duty to ensure that your health and safety is maintained at all times whilst you are at work, and there are a number of rules and regulations that they must abide by. If your accident and / or injuries were caused because your employers failed in this important duty of care that they have for you, their insurance should cover you and compensate you.

So – how do you make a work accident claim, and what does it entail?
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Whiplash Compensation – How Much?

Whiplash can be experienced very mildly or extremely severely, and so can have little effect on your life or an extremely debilitating effect on your life. This is why valuing a claim for whiplash can be difficult; some sufferers can recover from the condition in a matter of weeks, whereas others can suffer for months or years. As you will probably have gathered, there will be extremely different valuations placed on the two extremes I have just outlined above, and the point of this blog is to let you know how solicitors come up with these valuations for your claim.

A solicitor will use a wide range of tools to value your claim – I have set these out below:

1. Judicial Studies Board Guidelines: The JSB guidelines band neck injuries for the purposes of valuations – I have set out these bands below;

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Have I Got a Claim for Compensation?

This is the one of the most common questions we hear here at The Injury Lawyers, and hence the reason for dedicating a blog to the subject.

The best way to find out if you have a claim is to contact a specialist personal injury law firm. Many law firms such as The Injury Lawyers offer free claims assessments, so whether we take your claim on or not, you don’t have to pay a penny. So, it seems you have nothing to lose by getting some free legal advice and assessing your options.

So have you got a claim…?
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Why Make a Claim for Compensation?

There may be many accident victims out there suffering from their injuries and wondering whether to make a claim for compensation – hence the reason for writing this blog. If you have been involved in an accident that was due to the negligence of another, and you have been injured as a result, you may be entitled to make a claim. I have listed below some of the main benefits of beginning a claim, many of which you may not have realised existed.

Compensation for Injury

I will begin with the most obvious reasons why people begin claims for personal injury, and that is of course for compensation for their injuries.  This compensation is meant to reflect both the pain and suffering due to your injuries as well as your loss of amenity.  Loss of amenity means the adverse effects the injury has had on all areas of your life.
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Whiplash Treatment

Whiplash is actually a pretty complicated injury.  There can at times be no telling how long your whiplash will last for, and the amount of pain and suffering you will have from your whiplash injury can vary significantly between different people.  If anything, and I hate to break the news to anyone who has just sustained a whiplash injury, the pain and suffering is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Some symptoms of whiplash:

• Neck, back, shoulder pain or stiffness
• Headaches
• Pins and needles
• Light-headedness / headaches

Treatment:
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Uninsured or Untraced Claims

If you have been unfortunate enough to have been involved in an accident with an uninsured or untraced driver (i.e. the driver fled the scene without leaving their details), then you may still be entitled to claim for compensation through an organisation known as The Motor Insurers Bureau (or MIB for short).

To not be able to claim for an injury caused by a road accident that was not your fault would simply be unfair and unjust; hence why The Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) was set up in order to deal with uninsured and untraced claims. The MIB also deal with hit and run cases under its untraced agreement.

The MIB is funded by motor insurance companies and helps around 25,000 people per year make a claim. The fact that it is funded by the insurance companies means that, ultimately, they are funded by us and our insurance premiums – the MIB have calculated this cost to be around £15 – £30 per policy a year.
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Road Traffic Accidents – the Hotspots

Road traffic accidents are becoming increasingly common nowadays. This is probably due to the fact that roads are becomingly more and more clogged up with drivers in a rush and not paying the necessary care and attention whilst out on the road. These accidents also seem to occur most prevalently in traffic meeting places which I have gone on to discuss below:

Roundabouts

Many people can find roundabouts difficult to navigate; especially some of the larger ones. If someone is not completely sure of where they are going and which exit to take, this can be understandable, but it is sometimes these people who cause many of the accidents on our roundabouts. Accidents tend to be most commonly caused through people realising at the last moment they are in the wrong lane and cutting across lanes and causing collisions.
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