Before you make a personal injury claim it is important you understand what is involved and under what circumstance you are entitled to make such a claim. There are a few questions that are very important that are answered before you go ahead with filing a claim.
The first and most important question people tend to ask is whether or not they are entitled to making a personal injury compensation claim. If you have been injured in any way or have contracted a disease or illness because of another person’s negligent behaviour then yes, you are entitled.
Once you are aware of this, the next question is how long will you have to make your claim? Currently UK laws give you a time frame of 3 years from the date the accident occurred or if you have contracted a disease, the day from which it was realised that this was affecting your life. There are however circumstances where you can have longer such as being a child at the time of the accident.
After figuring out if you are now eligible and within the correct time frame you my start to wonder how much compensation you are likely to receive. Most people like to know in order to work out if it will cost them more time, money and effort than it is actually worth. However, it is unfortunately extremely difficult to predict how much compensation you will receive until all the facts surrounding the accident have be collected. Each case is unique and compensation is rewarded on an individual basis. If you want to have a ball park figure of what you would be looking at, you should sit down with your solicitor and assess the claim in more depth so that they could perhaps provide a figure.
Most people also want to know whether or not they will have to attend court in order to make their claim. In most situations this is not necessary as it just adds further stress and legal costs to those involved (although these costs are always payable to the one responsible for the injury). Often you will find that insurance companies who have to pay out would rather settle outside of court to avoid all the extra costs. In extreme situations where the dispute cannot be settled, you may have to go into court but your solicitor will talk you through everything so it is as stress free as possible. Get started making a claim by filling out our contact form.