Personal Injury Claims ???

BodyShopBabe_2

Good luck to LazyD in whichever course they decide to take!

dacouch

Crazy Jamie are you sure about this statement...

You should never have to claim on legal cover through your home insurance or anything similar.

My understanding is that the guidelines are that a solicitor or claims management company should make reasonable actions to establish with there is a Before The Event eg Domestic Legal Protection Policy in place.....

Crazy_Jamie

dacouch wrote: »

Crazy Jamie are you sure about this statement...

You should never have to claim on legal cover through your home insurance or anything similar.

My understanding is that the guidelines are that a solicitor or claims management company should make reasonable actions to establish with there is a Before The Event eg Domestic Legal Protection Policy in place.....

Allow me to clarify. You shouldn't have to claim on it with a Personal Injury Claim. Anything with damages of £1,000 or more for the injury itself is a fast track claim, and in virtually all such claims that they take on solicitors will operate under a Conditional Fee Agreement. They should also arrange adequate insurance to cover the possibility of losing, which will be organised at the same time as this agreement and will avoid a claim having to be made on any insurance policy you already have. CFAs make claiming on your home insurance for legal cover redundant, as you shouldn't pay anything to the solicitor for fees, whether up front or at all. In claims not involving personal injury, then yes legal cover on your home insurance can be a vital thing to have. But you should never have to use it for PI claims. With claims over £1,000 there should be no fees to pay, and for claims under that fees should be low enough that a claim on the insurance shouldn't be warranted considering the likely excess.

middelberg_za

Hi all
Going through a similar thing myself at the moment, in April 2007 a car wrote off my car, which I was stood behind, the other persons car careered over the top of me and dragged me 25 feet down the road, crushing my collarbone,shoulder,head injuries,whiplash type injury, various cuts and bruises.
After various ops I have been left with restricted movement (70%)of my left arm, constant pain in my left upper body resulting in regular cortizone injections, and i,m awaiting results to see if my neck has been permanently damaged and a further op is needed.
My solicitor through all this has been fantastic keeping me informed every step of the way, I was of work for 18 months but was luckily paid by my employer,not sure how much longer I can stay in my current job due to pain,
My question is how much would I expect to be paid in compensation any ideas ?

dacouch

I'm glad your solicitor has been sorting your claim out efficiently, the only person who can give you an APPROXIMATE guide is your own solicitor as there are so many variables. Give them a ring and ask them for a guide

middelberg_za

Thanks for your reply will do that Monday am

Crazy_Jamie

My question is how much would I expect to be paid in compensation any ideas ?

No one will be able to give you even an approximate figure with the information you provided in that post. First of all you would need a specialist personal injury legal adviser/solicitor/barrister, and they would need full details of the injury, including full copies of all medical reports prepared by the medical experts that will have examined you (might only be one expert, but that sounds like a very serious injury, so it could have been more than one). I wouldn't even consider quantifying a serious injury without looking at the medical report, and I would probably need more information than that besides. Your solicitor will be able to give you a ball park figure at some point, though perhaps not yet. He'll have all of the required information in his office, but he may need more before he can reliably quantify the injury. You said that you're waiting to see whether or not you have permanent neck damage. The result of that will make a difference to the compensation award, not only in damages for the injury (general damages), but also potentially to special damages (such as loss of earnings if you cannot continue with your job), and also potentially what is called a Smith v Manchester award (which reflects continuing disability in the employment market).

Quantifying damages for a personal injury is specialist work, especially where serious injuries are concerned, and should be left to the professionals. This is one of the reasons why I previously recommended that the OP in this thread go straight to a solicitor.

middelberg_za

Thanks for your reply, you,re right been seen by various consultants, forgot to mention that I,ve been having therapy for PTSD which is also an ongoing issue, amazing how one persons carelessness can have massive repercussions on another persons life.

dacouch

I hope everything gets sorted outed middleberg za efficiently and you receive a fair settlement as Insurance is all about ensuring genuinely injured people receive compensation for their injuries and losses.

Good luck, if you have any problems post them up here or preferably on the Insurance Forum and people will try their best to help.

Crazy_Jamie

middelberg_za wrote: »

Thanks for your reply, you,re right been seen by various consultants, forgot to mention that I,ve been having therapy for PTSD which is also an ongoing issue, amazing how one persons carelessness can have massive repercussions on another persons life.

I'm genuinely sorry to hear that you've got ongoing issues with PTSD as well as the physical injuries. The only positive thought I can offer is that, whilst it will invariably take a while, you will eventually get the compensation you deserve. Dacouch is right when he says that this process exists to ensure that people such as yourself receive the compensation that they deserve. Personal Injury litigation is surrounded in a shroud of negative public opinion, but the vast majority of such opinions are born out of either taking the minority of bad cases as the majority, or just general ignorance. The reality is that the system works and the vast majority of the solicitors involved in it know what they're doing, as I'm sure yours does.