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Sadly, road traffic accidents are a frequent occurrence on our roads.  Often it is just the motor vehicles involved that are damaged, and then it is a matter for your insurer and the other party’s insurer to sort it out.  Granted, it can be a huge inconvenience.  However, people often get injured in road accidents too.  It is not purely vehicles which are damaged.  If you have been involved in a road accident which was not your fault, but the fault of a negligent third party driver, and you have been injured as a result, then in all likelihood you may well have a claim for compensation for the injuries that you have suffered.

Making this claim for compensation is actually pretty straightforward.  Before April 2010, it could take a matter of months for your claim to be dealt with and settled; now, under a new protocol for low value personal injury claims which arise from a road traffic accident, your claim can be settled in only a matter of weeks or just a few months.  Unlike the previous protocol where the other side could take a period of around 4 months to investigate your claim, under this new protocol, they have a period of only 15 business days to admit or deny liability for your accident once they have received notice of your claim.

The first step is to complete what is know as a Claims Notification Form.  This is a straightforward document in which your personal details and other accident details are required.  Don’t worry if you do not like forms – at The Injury Lawyers, our quality injury lawyers are always at your beck and call to give you a hand.  Once this is completed, the claim form is submitted online to the other side’s insurer.  They then have a period of 1 business day to acknowledge receipt and commence their investigations.  During the next 15 days, they will come back to your injury lawyer with an admission or denial of liability.
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Whiplash can be a condition which is underestimated by those who have never experienced it. This may be due to the fact that it is not so plain to see as a broken bone or a laceration to the skin. At The Injury Lawyers, we take the exact opposite approach, and treat whiplash with the seriousness it deserves, as our clients tell us on a daily basis the devastating effects that it has on all areas of their lives.

In order to discuss the symptoms of whiplash, you need to firstly address the causes of the condition. Whiplash is caused by a sudden jolt to the head and neck, which in turn causes the neck to move beyond its normal range. This movement causes muscles and tendons in the neck to be damaged; thus leaving the person with symptoms that I will outline below.

The symptoms of whiplash tend to become apparent between 6-12 hours (or even more) after the accident has taken place, and then can increase in severity for up to a week.  Whiplash is experienced by different people in different ways – I have gone onto list the more common symptoms below:
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If you are reading this blog, you may have been involved in an accident, and you may well be suffering from whiplash, and are sat at home wondering how much your claim could be worth! With compensation claiming, there are two heads of damages – these being General Damages and Special Damages. I will discuss each one in turn in the following blog.

General Damages

General damages is compensation which you can claim for your injuries. A solicitor will place a value on your General damages by looking at a number of factors:
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If you have been injured in an accident which was not your fault, and you believe you have a potentially successful claim for compensation, it is important that you have an expert injury lawyer on your side.  Only this way will you be able to obtain the maximum compensation that you deserve in the shortest possible time. At The Injury Lawyers, we are experts in the field of personal injury claims, having dealt with thousands of cases over many years, and getting our clients the maximum compensation they deserve.  Here is a quick guide as to what you should be looking for in an injury lawyer:

You must keep 100% of your compensation

If you do not receive 100% of the compensation which has been agreed for your accident, this is the same as having your claim under-settled.  If your lawyers are to take even a penny away from your compensation, you are undercompensated.  At The Injury Lawyers, we do not believe in charging our clients for our services whatsoever.  That is why we work on a genuine no win, no fee agreement, which means that we will never charge you for our work.  Before you instruct an injury lawyer, please have a good read through their paperwork.  You must make sure that you keep all of your compensation, and that you are definitely not being charged any lawyers fees. 
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It is a little known fact that not only can you claim for compensation for your injuries, but that you can also claim for any financial losses you have suffered as a result of the accident. The reason for this is that compensation is meant to put you back in the position you would have been in had the accident not have taken place – therefore recouping your losses is an important part of claiming for compensation.

Your solicitor should advise you from the outset of your claim regarding your potential claims for losses so you are aware to document any ongoing losses, and retain any receipts and other evidence in support of them.

Once your losses are collated, your solicitor will then draft a document known as a Schedule of Loss which lists your losses for the other side to consider. This Schedule of Loss will not contain the compensation claimed for your injuries, as this is dealt with as a separate item; however, when your claim is settled, this may be paid in one global amount – i.e. injury compensation and your losses together.
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If you have been injured in an accident which was not your fault, it is likely that you have a potential claim for compensation for your injuries. It is important to note that it’s not just your injuries you can receive compensation for.

If you have suffered any other form of loss directly resulting from your injuries, your injury lawyer can make a claim for these losses as well. So, what losses am I talking about? By losses, I mean things like a loss of earnings claim, care and assistance you required and had to pay for whilst you were injured, travel costs for when you attended appointments, and medication costs.  Here’s an example…
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When clients first approach The Injury Lawyers, there are many frequently asked questions that are asked. In light of this, I hope to answer many of these FAQ’s in the following blog.

What is a claim for compensation?

A claim for compensation is a claim for a monetary sum from the party at fault, usually through their insurers, to financially compensate you for your suffering and losses they have caused.
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I read today in the Northern Echo that a man from Darlington is seeking £300,000 compensation having been almost killed after he opened the door in a moving taxi back in 2008.  It is reported that Mr James Stokoe sustained a severe brain injury after the taxi door slid shut on his head when the taxi driver braked.  As a result of the accident, Mr Stokoe had been left disabled and unable to return to his work having suffered a fracture skull, and had bleeding on the brain, and is now seeking compensation for both his injuries and losses resulting from the accident.  Mr Stokoe has suggested the taxi driver ‘failed to maintain the rear side passenger door properly, failed to appreciate the door was open and that Mr Stokoe was leaning out’.

If like Mr Stokoe you have been involved in an accident where you have been injured, and you consider that it was not your fault, and therefore believe that you may be entitled to compensation, the best course of action, having received medical attention, is to get in touch with a quality injury lawyer with plenty of experience in dealing with personal injury claims. After all, they are best placed to advise you on any potential claim.  At The Injury Lawyers, our lawyers have many years experience solely in this field of work, and deal with hundreds of personal injury claims every day.  What’s more is that we work on a genuine no win, no fee agreement, which means that our clients never get charged a penny for our services – and when they receive the compensation owed to them, they get to keep 100% of it.  Why not give us a quick call to discuss any potential claim you may have?

A few benefits of instructing The Injury Lawyers:
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Being involved in a road traffic accident that was not your fault is frustrating enough – however, finding out that the negligent driver does not have insurance in place, or who flees the scene without leaving any details, can be a point of added frustration and anger to any victim of a road accident.

However, when claimants such as those described above approach The Injury Lawyers, we can offer some light at the end of the tunnel with providing the information that they still have a valid claim for personal injury. Claims such as these are run through an organisation known as The Motor Insurers Bureau, or MIB. The MIB began in 1949 and are funded by motor insurance companies. This basically means that they are funded through us paying our motor insurance premiums every year. The cost to us has been calculated at approximately £15 – £30 per policy.

If you have an uninsured or untraced claim, and the MIB agree to take on the claim, either they or your own solicitor will arrange for you to be medically examined. This forms the basis for which a valuation of your claim can be made. The MIB will not only look at paying you compensation, but may also reimburse you for any vehicle repairs you have untaken, or pay you for any future repairs which need to be carried out based on a mechanic’s estimate.
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If you are reading this blog, you may be one of those many people out there who has had an accident that was not their fault, and as a result, is suffering from a condition known as whiplash. When deciding whether to begin a claim for compensation, many people may firstly consider whether the possible hassle and stress of making a claim will be worth the possible benefits that they can receive at the end. In answer to this, making claims does not have to be the hassle that you might think, and compensation for whiplash is aimed to reflect the suffering that this debilitating condition can cause.

In order to discuss the subject of this blog and how we reach the average claim payouts, I will firstly discuss how a claim is valued, and then how valuations have changed coming from 2010 and going into 2011.

How is a claim valued…
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