In the vast majority of whiplash claims we deal with, the innocent victim has been involved in a straightforward accident; say someone has driven into the back of their car, or hit them head on or pulled out of a side road into them.

These are claims where it should be easy to get an admission from the Defendant because it was clearly their fault and you would have thought that the amount of compensation people get will be similar.  Thing is, whiplash is a funny old injury that affects people in different ways, so the amount of compensation can differ a lot.

No-one’s whiplash injury is the same as the next persons.  People who have been involved in the same accident can suffer whiplash in different ways – they might suffer longer or find the whiplash more severe than the person who was sat next to them in the car in the same accident.  If someone tells you that they settled their whiplash claim for a certain amount and it sounds similar to yours, this doesn’t mean you will necessarily get the same amount of compensation.

At The Injury Lawyers we have known people to get whiplash symptoms straightaway, or in a few hours, whilst other people notice whiplash symptoms a few days later.  Some people suffer whiplash for a few days, others a few weeks, and unfortunately some people suffer for several months.  When valuing your claim, as a general rule, your claim will be worth more the more severe and the longer it lasts.

The only person who can properly diagnose your whiplash and let you know roughly how long they think you will be suffering is a medical expert.  At The Injury Lawyers, where liability is admitted for your accident, we will set you up with a medical appointment at a time and place convenient for you, so that your whiplash can be diagnosed and a prognosis provided.  This is the first step in properly valuing your claim.

The amount of compensation you can get will also depend on whether you have any other losses as a result of your accident – for example, if you have had to take time off work and have lost out on wages.  The more wages you have lost, the more your claim could be worth.  Another example is if you have to have treatment or medication, these costs can be recovered from the other side and will increase the value of your claim.

As a rough guide though, whiplash claims on average settle for around £2,500.00.  Say if you were suffering for around about a month, your claim could well be worth at least £1,000.00.  A longer lasting injury could be worth anywhere between £5,000.00 and £15,000.00, with a particularly serious whiplash claim potentially being worth just short of £100,000.00.  As you can see, it really depends on how severe your whiplash is, how long you are going to suffer for, and the extent of your related losses.

If you have a whiplash injury through no fault of your own and want to know how to get compensation for this, the best advice that I can give you is to get in touch with a quality injury lawyer who will fight tooth and nail to get you the maximum compensation you deserve. 

Make sure they work on a Genuine No Win, No Fee, meaning you will keep 100% of your compensation, and that they can set you up with some private medical treatment right at the start of the claim, and that they will always keep you up-to-date with the progress of your claim.  Call us today on 0800 634 75 75.

The weather is dangerous – and accidents are likely.

Friday was when the midlands (or at least where I live!) was hit by the snow, and it laid very fast. I’d say there has been a good four or five settled inches which has largely survived the weekend of trampling footsteps and flattening car wheels. But waking up this morning to news of travel chaos and problems all across Britain’s travel infrastructure as planes are grounded at Heathrow, and motorists being urged to take extra care on the roads, is far too reminiscent of that insane November in 2010.

Reports of hundreds of vehicles stranded on the M40 and M25 have come in from the BBC this morning, and a Facebook status from a friend of mine stated that it was “madness” as he literally watched cars just crash in to each other, with ditched recovery trucks even fallible enough to be unable to survive the harsh conditions.

Claims For Compensation

So, as you can imagine, we get extra busy around these times in the seasons as we are inundated with calls from people all wanting to know whether they have a claim for compensation. First thing I will say is that it’s always best to speak to an injury lawyer direct to find out over the phone whether you have a good chance of making a claim or not. If you speak to one of those claims companies or accident help lines, or call centre law firms, they will probably schedule a call back in a few hours or even days for an answer.

Give us a call now – we can normally tell you over the phone in minutes whether you have a claim or not.

Another thing I will say is that, although it’s highly annoying to get caught out on a patch of black ice, or a deep bit of snow, claiming against the council is a difficult job to do if it was the weather that caused your accident. The duty the highways authorities have is to reasonably grit where and when possible, and it’s normally based on a priority scale; but this is not an absolute duty.

However, if you’re involved in an accident with another vehicle, you should be able to make a claim for compensation so long as you weren’t 100% at fault. If someone else loses control of their vehicle due to the weather and crashes in to your car, you have a good chance of making a successful claim against them.

Sadly, with conditions as slippery as they are, impacts can be pretty brutal. In many rear end collisions, for example, the car at fault at least tries to slam their brakes on and reduces their speed to some degree. But in ice, the instinct to slam the brakes on is the worst thing a driver can do; they’ll probably lock, and the car will smash at considerable speed in to any vehicle in its path. This can leave the accident victim with some nasty injuries.

If you must head out and about, make sure you take extra care and prepare yourself and your vehicle to suit the conditions outdoors. It’s really only best to venture out if you simply have to do so, and only if it is safe to do so. Travel at a speed suitable for the conditions, and leave larger gaps between you and the vehicle in front to increase your stopping distance. If you do end up in an accident, given the weather conditions, I’d call the police and see if they need to assist. Ensure you take the full names and addresses, and vehicle registration numbers, or all persons involved.

If you have been involved in an accident caused by someone else, speak to us today about making an injury claim – we can also assist with all of your vehicle hire and repair needs as well, so don’t worry about sorting it yourself; we are a one stop claims shop who can take care of every need you have.

If we can help you out on our Genuine No Win, No Fee, you can fully expect to receive all 100% of your compensation payout. We can also help you out with any medical care needs that you may have as well.

Call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 and speak to an advisor today about your accident claim. Like I said before, we can tell you over the phone, normally within minutes, if you have a claim, and we can set your case up on a same day basis as well. We are an actual law firm of specialist personal injury lawyers; so our advice is the finest, and your claim is in the best of hands!

Passenger injury claims are one of the easiest to assess because it is highly unlikely you were to blame for the accident.  Really, unless you pull the handbrake or were severely distracting the driver at the time of the accident, you cannot be at fault for the accident.  Say you were the passenger in a car when someone drives into the back of that car, how can you be at fault?  You can therefore be compensated for any injuries you get as a result.

Here are a couple of examples of good passenger claims.  You are on a bus which is involved in a crash, the crash is not your fault, you can seek compensation from whoever was at fault, e.g. the bus driver or the third party driver.  You pop out to the shops with a friend and someone drives into the rear of your friend’s car whilst you are waiting at traffic lights and you get whiplash, you can claim compensation for this whiplash.

The best way to get the maximum compensation you deserve is to instruct an expert injury lawyer with loads of experience in road traffic accident claims.  What they will do is take all your information and get the ball rolling on your claim for you.  A Claim Notification Form will be submitted online and then the other side will only have 1 business day to acknowledge it and then 15 business days to admit or deny liability.  Once this is sorted it’s just a matter of getting medical evidence and settling your claim which shouldn’t take long at all.

It’s important to know then that if you were a passenger and have been injured you have a great claim for compensation and you are entitled just like everyone else who has been injured is to make a claim.  It doesn’t matter than you weren’t driving or that it wasn’t your vehicle that was involved – you can still make a claim from the negligent party’s insurer.  Some people are also concerned that they don’t want to be suing a parent or a friend if it was them who caused the accident – you won’t be, you will be dealing with the insurer and it will be the insurer who pays the compensation.

For some further free legal advice give us at The Injury Lawyers a no obligations call today on 0800 634 75 75.  Make sure you ask about how you will get to keep 100% of any compensation you receive and why not see if we can arrange for you to get some private medical treatment at no cost to yourself!

Accidents in supermarkets are not uncommon at all; we are used to helping people out who have been injured through no fault of their own at the local supermarket. I know there’s the initial embarrassment and the feeling like you need to quickly disappear after you slip or trip in front of so many people, but in reality, you could have a claim for compensation for any injuries you receive.

Had a Supermarket Accident? Can You Claim?

If you injure yourself in a supermarket through no fault of your own, say by slipping on a rouge grape on the floor, or perhaps some spilt washing up liquid, or perhaps even on a wet floor as its been raining or the staff have been mopping, or perhaps you tripped over a protrusion or a defect, you may be entitled to claim for compensation for injury and loss.

All supermarkets have an obligation to have Public Liability Insurance, which covers them for any members of the public in the store who ends up injured through negligence. The store itself, i.e. the staff and those in charge, have an important duty of care to look after you and make sure you don’t end up injured whilst in the premises. If you do, and they are found to be negligent, you can claim for compensation for any injuries and losses from their insurance!

From the outset, it’s difficult to establish whether you have a definite claim or not. Normally it all comes down to what sort of inspection and maintenance systems the supermarket has, and what preventative measures they employ to stop accidents from happening. For example, for a supermarket to defend a claim, they would have to prove that they had a regular system of inspection and maintenance in place that prevents accidents from occurring as much as is reasonably possible. Say, half hourly checks of all aisles, and a clean as you go policy for all staff.

Where hazards appear and measures need to be taken, those responsible must ensure to cordon off dangerous areas, place wet floor signs or other signage down, and ensure no one ends up harmed.

Making a Claim

If the supermarket fails to properly look after their visitors, that’s when you can make a successful clam for compensation. Making a claim is easy – call a specialist injury law firm like us to firstly find out if you have a chance of a winning claim or not. If you do, we can help you out on a Genuine No Win, No Fee basis, that means you receive 100% compensation if you win, with all legal fees recovered from the other side or written off if they can’t be recovered, and no costs to pay if the case loses.

What is a pre-med offer? 

It is an offer of settlement, without the evidence and sight of a medical report, put forward by the third party insurer to the legal representative of the claimant. In today’s economic climate, for some individuals this may be quite tempting to accept at the early stage of an injury claim.

However, despite how tempting and attractive this offer may appear, without a medical report,  the valuation of your claim cannot be accurately determined, so a pre-med offer is unlikely to be an accurate settlement amount. Normally the best way to value a claim is to have a medical report which entails you visiting an expert medical consultant for a quick appointment so the expert can report his or her conclusions about your injury and the extent of the impact on your life.

Here are some things that should be taken into consideration before signing on the dotted line:-

• Are you fully recovered from the accident, or do you have any on-going symptoms?
• Are you attending physiotherapy or rehabilitation of any kind, and if so who is paying for the treatment?
• As a result of the accident, did you lose any pay due to time off work?
• Did you have any other losses or expenses that you have either paid out of your pocket for or where the bills are still outstanding?
• Has the accident had an impact on your life with regard to social activities, and have you had assistance with domestic chores and personal care?
• Do you feel that you are 100% in the same position as you were prior to the accident?

Once a pre-med is accepted, the above points cannot be assessed as part of your claim any further, so the amount payable to you is generally made as a full and final settlement and the claim cannot be re-opened once you have signed and accepted the offer.

If this does happen to you, always discuss with your Injury Lawyer prior to accepting any offer, and make sure to take advice on how best to proceed, and what the pros and cons are of accepting such an offer at an early stage.

There are occasions when the third party insurer will contact you directly to offer you a pre-med, without including an Injury Lawyer; the insurer isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it to try and save themselves money, regardless as to whether or not they are fully compensating you for your injuries.

Where you do not have an injury lawyer to submit a claim on your behalf, and the third party contacts you directly with a pre-med offer, before accepting anything, take time to call an Injury Lawyer for free, no obligation advice.

Remember that the compensation paid out for injury and any losses should put you into the financial position you were in prior to the accident – you should be fully compensated for your injuries and loss.

So, if you’ve had an accident at work, and you’re looking for a work accident compensation claim lawyer, look no further, and take note of this three part guide that will fill you in on what you need to know.

1. Your Position and Employment is Protected

The first thing that commonly makes people think twice about making a claim against their employer is the affect a claim could have on their employment. In times of financial hardship, people worry that their jobs could be on the line if they were to sue their employers.

Trust me when I say there is literally no need for you to panic. You are protected by law and you cannot be sacked or treated any differently for making a claim against your employer. If this were to happen, you would have another simple claim against them for unfair dismissal if you lost your job, or perhaps constructive dismissal if you feel you had to leave after the way you were being treated. So for this reason, you shouldn’t worry – your employers know the law, and they would be stupid to attempt anything unsavoury

Plus, your employer has a legal obligation to have a policy of employers liability insurance to cover their employees for making claims. It’s not actually your employers that pay out: it’s the insurers! The insurance exists for employees injured in the line of duty to claim from, so it’s perfectly natural and normal to make a claim from it. It’s there to be used.

Furthermore, we find nowadays most employers are quite happy for you to make a claim from the insurance. After all, you’ve been hurt in the line of duty for them, and they have insurance for you to claim from. We often find nowadays people call us and actually tell us their employers advised them to talk to a No Win, No Fee lawyer and make a claim! This is great, as it’s an amicable process anyway, and our job is to simply ensure your interests are protected.

2. It Shouldn’t Cost You a Penny

This is of course entirely dependent on the No Win, No Fee agreement you enter in to. If the claim loses, you should not have to pay a single penny to your lawyers. If it wins, you should receive 100% compensation with no costs to pay as all your lawyers legal fees are recovered from the insurance directly.

Yes, that’s right – your employers insurance even covers your legal fees for making a claim!

With a Genuine Agreement, it shouldn’t end there – it should have an extra part to say that they will restrict their fees to the amount which they recover from the other side. This essentially means that your lawyer writes off any unrecovered, fees meaning you get to keep all 100%; guaranteed.

3. There’s More Than Just the Money

There’s more to making a claim than financial compensation you are duly owed for your injuries at work. On that side of things, you are entitled to claim a sum for the pain, suffering, and inconvenience the injury has caused you, and you are entitled to claim for any losses incurred – such as lost earnings, or travel expenses, etc.

With a good lawyer like us, we recognise that you may need treatment; fast! That’s why we can arrange funding for private medical care that can cover physiotherapy, chiropractic, or osteopathic treatment right from the start of the claim. If we win the case, we will seek to recover the fees from the insurers, and if the cases loses, we can look to recover the fees from a policy of insurance. So, in a worst case scenario, if your claim loses, at least you can get access to private medical care to help you back on the road to recovery!

If you have had an accident at work and you want to know whether you have a claim for compensation, call our free claims helpline today on 0800 634 75 75 for a friendly, no obligation chat. We will happily answer all of your queries, and start your claim on a same day basis if you are happy for us to do so. There’s no waiting around for lengthy contracts or huge legal documents – it’s simple and fast to get your claim started with us over the phone!

Anyone who loses out on earnings through being unable to work is entitled to make a claim for this loss that forms as part of their overall compensation claim. Your claim comes in to two parts – General Damages, and Special Damages. General Damages covers the injury itself, and Special Damages covers the financial loses, to which lost earnings are a part of.

Its normally pretty easy to work it out as well – if you have two weeks off of work and you are paid absolutely nothing, you are entitled to claim two weeks work of full earnings back. If you were paid Statutory Sick Pay, then you claim back the difference between that and the lost earnings. If you receive half pay through a company sick pay policy, than you claim back the other lost half as part of the claim.

The idea is to put you back in the position you were in financially before the accident occurred – i.e. like the accident never happened. We can’t take the injuries and the pain and suffering away from you, but we can compensate you for it and make sure that any financial losses you incur are recovered as part of the claim.

We normally work it out by assessing what you were earning 13 weeks on average before the accident. Your lawyers will normally ask you to provide 13 weeks’ worth of wage slips prior to the date of your accident to work out what you have lost out on.

There are of course certain factors that can make it a little more complicated to work out exactly what it is that you are entitled to claim for. If you receive regular bonuses, or were due to receive a bonus for a particular month you were off, or if there is any form of fluctuation in your earnings that you have lost out on, it can still be accounted for. All losses are a grey area when it comes to claiming for them, but with the right evidence and documentation to prove your loss, you shouldn’t have any trouble recovering them.

If you are self employed, we can review profit and loss accounts for three years prior to your accident to look at how much you have potentially lost out on. In circumstances like these, it all comes down to individual circumstances. With an expert personal injury lawyer on your side, they will guide you through the process of making sure that you don’t lose out financially whatsoever.

Any good injury lawyer will do all they can to ensure that you are put back in the financial position you were in before the accident ever happened. Make sure you go for a specialist injury lawyer to ensure that your claim for losses is always maximised.

For advice on lost earnings or claiming for compensation, or to start a claim with us, a specialist firm of independent personal injury lawyers, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today.

With this in mind then, it is important to understand that it is not possible to seek compensation directly from an individual who caused the accident as, from a financial perspective, they would certainly struggle to compensate you properly. Therefore the preferable route would be to seek damages against their employer as chances are they will posses adequate insurance for you to claim from.

Having said this, in order for a case of vicarious liability to be successfully brought a distinction must be made between what qualifies an individual to being under a ‘contract of employment’ and under a ‘contract for services’.

Individuals under a contract of employment by their respective employers are under the scope of vicarious liability, and if found to be acting negligently the employers insurance should cover the claim. On the other hand ‘contract for services’ covers independent contractors who may be employed by organisations and companies. If you are injured by such a person, you could find it difficult to claim from your own employer under the vicarious liability rule.

It can all be a little confusing, so the best thing you can do is get in touch with an injury lawyer to find out whether you have a valid claim for compensation, and who would be best to claim against.

Make no mistake though, if an individual who through their own negligence, and in the course of their employment has caused you harm, you are well within your rights to claim against their employer for compensation, such as for physical or psychological injuries, and also anything from loss of earnings travel expenses, medical expenses, or any other substantial out of pocket expenses caused by your injury.

Employers are under a legal obligation to not only provide safe working conditions for their employees, but also adequate training to ensure accidents to the public and their own employees are minimal. With this in mind then, it is only fair that failure to co-operate with these legal obligations should result in consequences for those responsible, and it is our job to ensure that this justice is accomplished. Although we hope that you are never so unfortunate as to suffer an injury of this nature, rest assured that we will do everything in our power to ensure that you are properly compensated, leaving you the time and effort to focus on the most important thing; your wellbeing and rehabilitation.

Prior to April 2010 you could have been waiting a few months for an admission of liability from the other side, and then a couple more months to get your compensation payout sorted.  Thankfully the whole process has been overhauled and you could have your whole claim settled in just a few weeks or a couple of months.

You are now required to submit what is known as a Claim Notification Form via the Ministry of Justice online portal.  This is straightforward – especially with the right expert injury lawyer on your side.  The form will take roughly 20 minutes to complete and your injury lawyer should go through this with you. 

It just notes those involved in the accident, where the accident happened, the nature of your injuries and nature of your accident.  Once completed it is submitted electronically to the Defendant’s insurer who must acknowledge it within 1 business day.  Upon acknowledgement the Defendant’s insurer then has just a further 15 business days to come back with their position on liability.  Often, such is the straightforward nature of road traffic accidents, an admission of liability can be received much sooner.

Once liability is admitted your injury lawyer will set you up an appointment with a medical expert so that a legal medical report can be compiled.  This will demonstrate that your injuries relate to your accident and provide a prognosis from which your claim can be valued.  With your permission, the medical report will be disclosed to the Defendant and then it is just a matter of settling your claim.

At The Injury Lawyers we fight tooth and nail for the maximum compensation you deserve and will advise on any offer of compensation you receive.  What’s best is that when you receive your compensation you will get to keep every penny of it.  Under our genuine no win, no fee agreement we cannot take a penny away from your compensation and will instead seek to recover our costs from the Defendant.

For some further information and free legal advice do not hesitate to get in contact today.

Whiplash is often only associated with neck pain, but it also can affect your shoulders and back, and sometimes may cause discomfort to your arms or the rest of your body. Whiplash injuries can include stiffness, pain and loss of movement. It can also cause headaches, muscle spasms, and sometimes the pain can run down through the shoulders and arms which causes a lot of stress and hassle.

Whiplash is caused by a sudden movement of the body backwards, forwards or sideways. This rapid movement damages the ligaments and tendons in the neck, shoulder and back areas which causes the severe pain and immobility. For example, when you have been involved in a road traffic accident and you were correctly proceeding in your vehicle, a sudden impact from a negligent vehicle colliding into your vehicle will cause you to jolt forwards, backwards or sideways as your seatbelt will stop you from continuing forward; therefore causing you to sustain whiplash injuries.

Whiplash injuries can affect people in different ways – some people complain of being unable to get a good night’s sleep which may well effect you the following day, as not only are you in pain, but you are also tired from no sleep! It can affect your ability to travel places, which may affect your work and daily chores such as shopping, household duties, and general daily care. Whiplash injury’s can really cause a lot of nuisance to your life – that is why we here at The Injury Lawyers are passionate about working hard for you in order to obtain the maximum amount of compensation possible.

The restriction that whiplash injury’s bring can also affect your social life – for example we have many clients who have complained about being under a lot of pain and immobility over Christmas and New Year resulting in them having an unfortunately miserable time of the year. Whiplash injury affects any aspect of a person’s life.

If you have a whiplash injury as a result of a road traffic accident that was not your fault, you are entitled to claim for compensation and we believe that you should receive the maximum amount of compensation possible. We are passionate about our clients and we understand the terrible effect whiplash injury’s can have on a person that’s why we work harder for you. Don’t hesitate to call today for some free, friendly legal advice on 0800 634 75 75.