How Do I Claim Back Lost Earnings?
If you have lost earnings due to an accident through no fault of our own, you can include a claim for loss of earnings as part of the compensation claim you’re making. The claim itself comes in to two parts commonly: General Damages and Special Damages. The latter is what lost earnings is covered under.
The general principle in law is that anything you have reasonably lost or reasonably paid out for as a result of an accident or injury is something you should be able to clam back for as part of a case. As long, the reason for the loss, is attributable to the accident or the injuries, and as long as it’s reasonable, there shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t claim it back.
What’s reasonable? Good question…
It’s common to send you to a medical expert as part of the claim, as they will produce a report that is used to help us value your claim on the injury side of things. The expert should also comment on the reasonableness of any time off work that has resulted in the lost earnings. As an example – if you’re staying off work because you can’t lift anything at work due to a bad back injury you are suffering from and you work in a warehouse lifting heavy boxes all day, I’d say that’s reasonable, and I’d like to think any right minded GP or medical expert would agree.
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Does Whiplash Compensation For Children Get Put Into A Trust?
Please note that the information below may not apply to accidents that occur in Scotland. Therefore if you are looking for advice on child settlements in a Scottish claim please contact us direct.
When you have been involved in an accident, it can already be an upsetting time. However, when your children have also been involved this can make the scenario 10 times worse, especially if your child is injured. Fortunately, it is possible to pursue a claim on behalf of a minor (any persons under the age of 18) and therefore this may help make the situation appear clearer and go towards compensating for the distress involved.
So how does pursuing a whiplash claim for a child work? It is relatively simple. Primarily, the child will need what is called a litigation Friend to undertake the day to day running of the case. This is usually a parent or guardian, but can be anybody that is close to the child and most importantly acting in the child’s best interest.
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Top Injury Lawyers Personal Injury Solicitors Review
We know that there is a lot of competition in the personal injury world – with each firm looking the same as the next, it can be hard to chose who to go with. However, when you dig beneath the surface, law firms can be VERY different from one another. Here at the Injury Lawyers we have strove to ensure that we stand out from the rest.
Unlike some companies out there, we are an actual law firm. We are not a claims company, advice helpline, or some sort of agent. We can give you legal advice right from your initial call and it is us that actually deal with your case if you instruct us to. The advice we give you from the beginning is therefore real legal advice regarding your potential claim. We do not pass your details around, so there are no middlemen taking cuts from your claim.
Unfortunately, many companies do involve themselves in this practice and this can affect how your claim is run. If the firm pays £1,000 (the going rate) to a middleman for your details, this takes away funds from the fees allocated to run your case and therefore it is very likely that they cannot provide the great service we do and cannot fight as hard for a higher payout. Essentially they’ve squandered a load of their budget on paying a middleman – the referral fees are not recoverable from the other side.
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Commonly, we’re looking at two potential viewpoints on this one – you’re a pedestrian who is hit by a vehicle with a driver that is too cowardly to stick around and do the right thing to help you out; or you are in an accident due to a pedestrian causing you to have an accident.
If you are the pedestrian then there is still the chance to make a claim. Make sure that the matter is reported to the policy straight away and make sure you have medical attention straight away as well. By straight away I’d suggest within 24 – 48 hours. If the police track down whoever decided to leave you injured and unaided at the scene of the accident, we can pursue the claim against them. But if we never find them, there is another way.
The Motor Insurers Bureau was set up as a not for profit organisation with an agreement with the government to investigate and pay out for untraced or uninsured drivers. As long as the matter has been duly reported as I said above, they should be able to pay out for the claim. The level of compensation awards is the same as pursuing an insurer; the major difference is that it can take longer to settle a claim as its difficult to hold a not for profit organisation to any legal deadlines for responses. They work to considerable backlogs, but hey – be grateful there is a way of making a claim!
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Insurance Company Not Responding to Claim
As a firm of specialist personal injury lawyers with years of claims experience under our belt, we’re more than used to dealing with insurers, and we’re more than used to the fact that they aren’t always the easiest of people to work with! Thankfully there are protocols in place where we can impose deadlines on insurers to respond to claims within appropriate timeframes.
For example, when a letter of claim is submitted to a Defendant in a common accident at work, occupiers case (like in a supermarket or shop), claim due to defects on the highways, or product claims for example, the other side has 21 days to acknowledge the letter of claim under the pre-action protocol for personal injury. Once it has been passed to whoever will be dealing with the case, usually an insurer, they have three months to investigate a claim. So, generally speaking, the other side has just under four months in theory to respond with a decision as to whether they will pay you out for the claim or not.
Some may respond quickly, leaving you knowing whether the other side intends to defend the claim at an earlier stage; whilst some may well take the entire timeframe just to come back to us. Some may not respond at all – in this case we can issue an application for pre action disclosure against them to force them to respond with the power of a court order. This unfortunately will add time to the claim, but at least it’s something we can do to force a response in the event they fail to respond. An application, if successful, is costly for insurers; so it’s within their interests to respond in time!
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Is my injury claim offer right?
The only way to value a claim for personal injury compensation is by getting examined by an appropriate expert who then produces a medico-legal report, that is in turn used by a fully qualified personal injury lawyer who will review the evidence and value the claim based on the correct legal guidelines.
On top of that, if you have suffered any loss of earnings, or medical expenses, travel expenses, care and assistance from friends and family etc, these can be added in as well.
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Suffered Whiplash But Still Working
People are often worried about returning to work when they’re suffering from whiplash. It normally comes down to one of three things:
- You’re worried you can’t work because of the pain and will lose out on earnings.
- You’re worried that you can work, but the pain will be uncomfortable.
- You’re worried about not being able to claim because you are able to work.
In law, you have a duty to mitigate your loss. You also have a duty to follow medical advice to make sure you don’t worsen your symptoms. So it’s best to seek medical advice and find out whether your doctor feels you are able to work or not. If not, then you should probably follow their advice and stay away from work. Any earnings you lose out on can be recovered as part of the claim in most circumstances.
If you can work, or you’re in the category of people who must work to make ends meet, then you can still make a claim. The other side isn’t necessarily going to raise the argument that you can’t be in any pain because you are able to work. Whiplash didn’t stop me from working, and they haven’t raised it with me. Yes, I was in pain; but it wasn’t pain enough to warrant loads of time off work and then claiming lost earnings fees from the other side. If you can work, and you’re medically fit to do so, you shouldn’t worry about it affecting the claim.
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When the claim is settled and the only thing that’s left is for the cheque to be received, cashed, and spent, a lot of people get anxious and want to know how long it will take for the cheque to get from the insurers and in to their hands. The problem is that it can be hard to say.
We normally put insurers or solicitors to a deadline of around 14 – 21 days to get the cheque to us from the day they confirm the settlement amount, but all sorts of things can go wrong. The cheque itself may not be too easy to track.
It will normally have to be raised by the insurers or whoever is dealing with matters on the opponent’s side, sent out to your solicitors, and then sent to you. How long it takes the accounts department for the other side to raise a cheque is anyone’s guess. How long it takes the royal mail to get it to us and then for us to get it to you is again, difficult to predict. Second class doesn’t always get to its destination in time, and first class doesn’t always mean next day delivery.
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What is the Average Personal Injury Claim Paid Out For a Fall?
Personal injury claims can be a necessity, especially when the injury sustained has resulted in a number of consequential losses such as loss of earnings, medical expenses and treatment costs. So how much can you look to receive when claiming for an injury resulting from a fall?
This is impossible to say at the beginning of the claim – and the main reason for this is that there are many different factors that will affect your settlement and this is why it is so difficult for anyone to ever give a definitive sum. One of the main factors is the medical evidence gathered to support your claim as this is mainly what a settlement will be calculated on.
In this medical report something called a “prognosis period” is given – this gives a time frame of how long you are going to be affected by the injury you have sustained. It is always advisable not to settle your claim until this time period has passed, as you may run the risk of under settling your claim. Your personal injury solicitor should continue to support you throughout this period, logging the progress of your injury and arranging any medical treatment you require. If at the end of this period you are still suffering it may be necessary to arrange another medical appointment which will provide a second prognosis period.
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Manual Handling is 50% of the Cause for Sickness in Social Care
With the introduction of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 it is fair to say that the majority of employers have taken action and introduced manual handling training to their employees. However, it seems that there are still certain sectors of employment where statistics show more could be done by the employer to prevent injury when moving obstacles within the employment.
In social care, moving patients, equipment and supplies or waste is a significant part of a daily routine. Subsequently around 2,000 injuries are reported each year in social care work which has occurred from manual handling. Over 50% of the injuries reported involving lifting and manoeuvring patients. The statistics of how many injuries occur in social care may be alarming to some especially with the introduction of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
Under the Regulation 4 Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 your employer owes you a duty to reduce the risk of injury to employees when a task involves manual handling. By reducing the risk it can involve avoiding the handling all together where reasonably practice, putting in measures in place to avoid injury to individuals and other employees and to assess the risks when manual handling cannot be avoided.
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