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People often have the misconception that claiming for compensation requires you to be seriously injured, or at least in a position where something is broken and a hospital was needed for treatment. This is not the case – and I’m not talking about injuries that are far worse, like amputations or brain damage; I’m talking about sprains, bruising, and other injuries under the scope of soft tissue damage or lacerations.

The answer is simple – no you don’t have to have broken something, and you can claim for what we would class as minor injuries. There are two potential roads to go down – firstly, if your injury lasts more than four to six weeks, it should be worth at least £1,000. As long as it is worth at least this much, we can make a compensation claim as we are entitled to recover our legal fees from the other side. If it’s worth less than that, you can still claim but the case would likely fall within the realms of the Small Claims Track. For this, a solicitor cannot normally recover fees so you might have to go it alone in a small claims court.
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Here at The Injury Lawyers we deal solely with personal injury claims – we are therefore experts in the personal injury field. If you are wondering whether you have to be off work to make a claim for compensation, put simply, the answer is no. If you are injured in an accident that was not your fault, you could be eligible to claim compensation. It does not matter whether or not you took time off work.

It could be that your injuries did not affect your work and therefore you may have been able to continue in your employment. With minor injuries, for example minor whiplash injuries, people may not have to take any time off work. Whether or not you do need to take time off work will depend on the nature and severity of your injuries and also the nature of the job that you do. If you do heavy manual work then you may be less able to fulfil your duties. However before taking time off speak to your employer as they may be able to offer you an alternative role while you get better. This is often referred to as “light duties”. You may be able to work but you may not be able to do anything heavy.
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To be honest, with some companies it can be a pain; which is why we make the process simple. What you need to avoid are claims management companies, or these accident management specialists and accident advice services – they’re not lawyers, just middlemen who refer you over to a law firm for a fee. That fee is either payable by you, or is taken out the budget for running the claim, which can leave you with a rubbish service!

There is also an obvious delay as the company basically passes your claim to the highest bidding law firm. You don’t want to be in a situation where someone takes your basic details and then promises a call back within 48 hours – you want to know right from the start if you can make a claim, and most people want the ball rolling right away!

Achieving this is simple – call an independent law firm like us directly. As we are a real law firm, we won’t be passing your details around. We assess the claim, and then we actually represent you for the claim if you want us to do so. We don’t believe in waiting around – in the majority of cases we can assess your claim over the phone, and either get some paperwork out to you by first class post on the same day, or start the claim there and then.
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If you fall over and sustain injury on someone else’s property or in public, then you may be entitled to claim for compensation. Courts look at each case on its own merit and although drink can be a factor, it does not necessarily mean that you will not be able to make a claim if you fall over whilst intoxicated.

First of all we would consider what caused you to fall. Did you fall due to a defect in the pavement? If so you may have a claim for compensation, even if you had been drinking before or at the time of the accident. There is no strict rule saying that people under the influence of alcohol cannot make a compensation claim. Some people may be very drunk which causes them to fall over for no apparent reason. Other people may have had one or two drinks and trip on a defective pavement or pothole. Clearly there is a big difference here. Just because you have had a drink, it does not mean that you cannot claim.
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There are a lot of compensation solicitors out there ready and willing to take on your case. However, unfortunately things are not always what they seem – something that advertises itself as a firm of lawyers, may actually be a claims management company that then refers you across to one of their “panel” of lawyers; so the people you speak to initially may not be legal professionals at all!

Usually these companies will put in their small print “we are a cohesion of lawyers” or a “group of lawyers” or something similar, which is a posh way of saying we are a claims management company who put you in touch with lawyers that we have chosen. Of course, this seems an absurd way of doing things as you can simply go to a solicitor direct and cut out the middleman! Not many people hire a middleman to find them a dentist, hairdresser or accountant; you simply go to them direct. So why should finding a compensation lawyer be any different?
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Pre-action protocols were introduced for a number of reasons. The main reason was to speed up the claims process by providing guidelines as to when insurers should respond to a claim. Most personal injury claims come under a certain protocol, all of which differ slightly.

Road traffic accidents now come under the road traffic accident protocol, industrial disease claims (e.g. industrial deafness, vibration whiter finger etc) come under the disease and illness protocol and most other personal injury claims (e.g. work accidents, trips/slips etc) come under the more general personal injury protocol. Note that road traffic accidents differ slightly in the sense that a claim can “fall out” of the road traffic accident protocol. This is because road traffic accident claims are submitted through an online portal and should insurers fail to respond to the claim in time (within 15 business days) then the claim falls out of the road traffic accident protocol and continues under the more general personal injury protocol. This means that different time frames are then in operation. This also has cost consequences as Solicitors are only entitled to recover fixed costs for claims dealt with on the online portal under the road traffic accident protocol.
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Whiplash claims are oh so common; and the question as to how much compensation you are allowed to recover for a whiplash claim is all over the internet. We have done a fair few articles on this topic in the past, but the reason I wanted to write about this today is because I have a whiplash claim and I’ve just received my very first offer! Very exciting…
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One of my all time favourite things is that moment when I come home from work on a Friday night, crack open a bottle of beer, and collapse in to my lovely leather sofa to wind down from a hard week at work helping you guys fight for your rights to make a claim for compensation. It’s always great to sit down, and most of us probably spend a heck of a lot of time sat down in chairs at work and in everyday life. It’s a huge part of living when you think about it.

However, life is not so bliss when you’re sat in a chair and end up injured through no fault of your own. We do see a fair few chair accident compensation claims, which commonly arise from one of the following:
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Pursuing a claim can be quite confusing and daunting for people as some companies fail to explain the process in a nice straight forward way- they prefer to speak in complicated legal jargon that many people find just plain confusing and essentially means nothing to them. Unfortunately, this also means that many people may under-settle their compensation claim either because they do not understand or to simply end things as soon as possible.

It is a sad truth that some companies like to end things as soon as possible which can actually be against the best interests of you – mainly insurance companies of third parties like to deal direct with a quick and small settlement as this is advantageous to them as it saves them money! However, under settling a claim can have unfortunate consequences -especially if your injury is serious and has long term affects.
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Pre-medical offers are what they say on the tin! – Offers made before medical evidence has been gathered and reviewed. In most cases such offers should be treated with caution and should only be considered if you have the advice of a personal injury specialist as the majority of the time you may run the risk of under-settling your claim.

Compensation is based on the severity of your injuries and how long these will affect your everyday life. Therefore, it is a main and pinnacle part of any claim to gather accurate medical evidence using a medico-legal report from a proper expert. This expert has a duty to the Court which ensures that they are an impartial party in the claim. In the report compiled by this expert there are often key bits of information that affect the value of your claim, which include:

1. A prognosis period – which predicts how long your injury will affect you.
2. Any treatment you may require.
3. Effects on your ability to work.
4. Effects on the your daily routine and daily living.

Based on all the above and of course any consequential losses you have occurred, a valuation of your claim will be established and consequently any offers of settlement will be based on such evidence.
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