{"id":2407,"date":"2010-05-27T15:21:42","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T14:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theinjurylawyers.co.uk\/injury-lawyers-blog\/?p=2407"},"modified":"2010-05-27T20:09:42","modified_gmt":"2010-05-27T19:09:42","slug":"claiming-with-insurers-for-a-car-accident-avoid-it-at-all-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theinjurylawyers.co.uk\/injury-lawyers-blog\/2010\/05\/27\/claiming-with-insurers-for-a-car-accident-avoid-it-at-all-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Claiming with Insurers for a Car Accident \u2013 Avoid it at ALL Costs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"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!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So what is this, why is this the case, and what can you do about it? It\u2019s called Third Party Capture!
\n<\/p>\n

Third Party Capture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u201cvaluing\u201d the claim. So why is this such a problem?<\/p>\n

Well, with regards to offers, the only way you can ever value a claim for compensation<\/a> is with good solid medical evidence!<\/em><\/strong> It is literally the only way! Without medical evidence, it\u2019s impossible to tell how much a claim is truly worth<\/em><\/strong>. And once you settle your claim for injury<\/a>, you cannot reopen it \u2013 it\u2019s done with! So if you settle without medical evidence, then chances are you have vastly under settled your claim<\/em><\/strong>. So how do we know this?<\/p>\n

Well firstly, without representation, the insurers could offer you anything and you wouldn\u2019t know if it was fair or not<\/em><\/strong>. Usually they offer \u00a31,000; but recently they have increased this to sometimes around \u00a32,000 to try and seal the deal. But with no medical evidence, they don\u2019t know how much your claim is worth<\/em><\/strong>. So where did they get this figure from? The answer is \u2013 thin air!<\/p>\n

In actual fact, minor whiplash<\/a> cases settle for around \u00a32,500<\/em><\/strong> according to statistics, and the amount they offer you is not likely to include all your heads of claim<\/em><\/strong>. For example:<\/p>\n