Personal Injury Claim

Why don't you speak to your insurance company and get them to deal with this on your behalf. You also need to see your doctor and get all of your symptons put on record.

Regrettably, I speak as someone with experience of these things. 3 times I have been hit up the rear of the car. Each time I have had whiplash, quite severely, and on the last occasion, the impact set off a balance problem with quite unpleasant effects.

Hi,

I can't give you any names of any companies that I would recommend, but OscarTG's advice is good, however there is one final way you can go.

This is a rehash of one of my earlier posts, but relevant to you so...

Why not ring the responsible party's insurer and ask whether they will deal with you directly, rather than by playing chinese whispers via a solicitor?

Most insurers these days try to work proactively and offer their comp claims service to third parties when liability is clear cut.

Why do they do this? It all comes down to £££££££££

In my original post about this I included info on how responsible party insurers are actively seeking to help claimants directly with all aspects of their claim including dealing with the damage to their vehicle, hire cover etc (nb - while I think about it, some DL policies don't include hire car cover - if you've had a hire vehicle from a credit hire company, they will also deal with your injury claim too if you ask them - they will often offer). The previous post including this info can be found HERE but as you're only talking injury...



If your claim includes personal injury, they can book you into physiotherapy, and if you have any other immediate rehabilitation such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, this can also be arranged privately (to try and reduce the length of time you are suffering and thus reduce the overall cost of the claim).

Also, they can arrange the medical report you may need, or make a nominal offer (normally less than £1000) without even needing a medical report (this obviously saves them the £200 cost of obtaining one) - although if you feel that you are suffering more than what might be considered 'normal' travel anxiety, or are experiencing phobic or depressive behaviour over a sustained period I would NEVER suggest accepting an offer without at least a proper medical report, and perhaps a second one from a psychologist, or better still, a psychiatrist so that a) you get the treatment you need, and b) to ensure that you are compensated in accordance with the level of injury you have suffered.

Another reason why they [the responsible insurers] will arrange all of this for you, is that if you are happy with their service to you, it may mean that you choose not to use a solicitor - and bearing in mind that current solicitors fees for claims valued at between one and five thousand (the large majority) are £800 plus 20% of damages agreed, this is a saving in itself - it does not automatically mean that because you don't have a solicitor they will issue a take-the-michael offer to you.

At no point do you sign away your right to instruct a solicitor - if at any stage you are unhappy with the progress of the claim you can always ALWAYS take legal advice, and particularly as your claim does include personal injury then the insurer would probably write to you to remind you of this.

Finally...

Of course today's third party is tomorrows customer - if they treat you well now, then there's every chance that you might consider changing insurer to them when you renew


IMHO I would be happy to let the responsible persons insurers deal with the claim - chances are it will be dealt with quicker, you can always instruct a solicitor later if you feel you need it.

As a claimant you have a duty to mitigate your losses - if they're already handling the claim for you directly, then I guess the majority of that onus passes to them and saves you some hassle.

I know there is a massive distrust of insurance companies, but this is one case where really, both your and their priorities are the same - you wanna be back on the road quickly, and recover from your injuries as quickly as possible, and they want you to be back on the road quickly & recover quickly (because it is cheaper for them than if your claim drags on unnecessarily)


They will probably not require your full medical records these days - however, they might, so it's as well to be prepared to release this information. It will almost always be asked for in the event that you have made personal injury claim/s before - particularly if you have made repeated or recent claims - the Department of Work & Pensions will tell them whether you have or not, so there's no point in trying to hide it if you have.

I hope this rather long post gives you some help, and hope that you've all healed up/will recover soon.