And “cost” is pretty much the important part of it! Because if you deal with the insurers of the third party directly, it is more than likely it will end up costing you money!
So what do I mean by this? Well, in most instances, I am not implying that insurers will charge you for dealing with them directly in a claim for personal injury by way of a percentage of your damages, or invoicing you. What I mean is that if you go down the route of dealing with third party insurers directly, you are very likely to get less compensation than you are entitled to recover.
So what is this, why is this the case, and what can you do about it? It’s called Third Party Capture!
Third Party Capture
This is when the insurers for the driver at fault contact the victim directly and either offer them a quick cash lump sum settlement or offer to deal with the claim for them, sometimes even getting medical advice and “valuing” the claim. So why is this such a problem?
Well, with regards to offers, the only way you can ever value a claim for compensation is with good solid medical evidence! It is literally the only way! Without medical evidence, it’s impossible to tell how much a claim is truly worth. And once you settle your claim for injury, you cannot reopen it – it’s done with! So if you settle without medical evidence, then chances are you have vastly under settled your claim. So how do we know this?
Well firstly, without representation, the insurers could offer you anything and you wouldn’t know if it was fair or not. Usually they offer £1,000; but recently they have increased this to sometimes around £2,000 to try and seal the deal. But with no medical evidence, they don’t know how much your claim is worth. So where did they get this figure from? The answer is – thin air!
In actual fact, minor whiplash cases settle for around £2,500 according to statistics, and the amount they offer you is not likely to include all your heads of claim. For example:
- If you are off work from the accident and loose £1,000 in earnings – you can claim this back.
- If your partner had to help you with shopping, cleaning, meal preparation etc for, let’s say, 3 hours a day for 2 weeks, you can claim back the time they have spent as a monetary sum – usually around £6 per hour. That’s 42 hours right there – equating to more than £250 you can claim back.
- If you were on prescription medication due to the accident for 4 weeks, costing £7.10 for one pack per week, you can claim the £28.40 you have spent on the medication back.
- If you have to visit a doctor or physio 3 times a week, and they are based 5 miles away from you, you can claim back your petrol expenses for each 10 mile round trip at around 50p per mile. That’s £15 per week! If you have physio for 4 weeks, that’s £60 right there you can claim back.
In total that equates to more than £1,300 that the insurers, by dealing with them directly, have potentially cost you by you not being able to claim it back!
The main issue is still the fact that their offers are always low – why would the insurers be willing to pay more than they have to if they can get away with it? And that’s what they are trying to do – save themselves some money by paying less out to the victim!
So, what if they send you to an independent consultant and get you a proper medical report? Well, that’s all very well, but when they come to value your claim, how do you know that their offer is the maximum you are entitled to claim for? At the end of the day, these people you are dealing with are the representatives for the driver at fault for the accident; and are responsible for compensating you either way. There is no way the victim themselves can know that an offer is fair – they just have to take the insurers word for it. And the insurers know this all too well; and they will try and under settle your claim because they can get away with it!
And it does get worse…
We at The Injury Lawyers take calls day in and day out from people who have dealt with the third party insurers directly and at last minute realised that their offer seems low. Luckily, we have helped them out and settled their claim properly. But there are probably hundreds, if not, thousands of victims who have under settled their claims out there by dealing with the insurers directly; and it’s likely they will never even know.
And worse still, there are some insurers who will do absolutely anything to make sure the victim does not seek independent advice from a specialist lawyer. Quinn Direct are known to employ people to “capture claims” and do all they can to settle a claim without lawyers involvement. They work on bonuses and will often even visit victims at their own home to persuade them to settle without medical evidence. According to sources from the BBC, there are clear examples of Quinn Direct’s attempts to “pressure” the victim in to settling with them directly (source). And the whole practice is unethical and unfair to the victim.
The insurers say it’s fair to compensate the victim as quickly as possible; but it’s not fair to allow the victim to potentially under settle their claim for compensation in not being allowed to get proper medical evidence, or representation from an expert lawyer.
So what should you do? Instruct an independent firm of expert personal injury lawyers to represent you for the case. Only an expert lawyer is truly on your side, and will ensure that you receive the maximum compensation you are legally entitled to recover.
In order for your claim to be successful at the highest level, there really is no other way! The facts are there – so be smart, and get a lawyer on your side.
