Claim for whiplash?

Crazy_Jamie

Ralphy101 wrote:

For instance - the last time i looked the JSB guidlines ( book for valuing injuries) valued a 12 month whiplash as £2.5k.

R3negadeuk wrote: »

With whiplash you are looking at 750 - 2500. 750 is the minimum offer anyone could get for this injury. 2500 is if the symptoms still affect you up to 12 months after the incident. the latter is an extreme, I have not seen many(if any?) whiplash claims settled this high.

Valuing injuries may not be an exact science, even with ample experience, but let's still try to give accurate factual information on the subject. The lowest bracket in the 9th Edition of the JSB Guidelines for neck injuries lasting from a few weeks to a year was £850 to £2,750. In the 10th Edition that bracket is now £875 to £2,850.

And just to mop up a few other points from Renegade, but it is still possible to get less than that if the injury is very minor, and whiplash injuries in the bracket above that take up to two years to heal are not what I'd call uncommon. They do happen; they're just not ten a penny like the ones in the lowest bracket are. I know you didn't specifically state that they don't happen, it's just that your assertion that you have never comes across one carried a potential implication to that effect, so I thought I'd clarify.

tifo

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

In the 10th Edition that bracket is now £875 to £2,850.

for 12 months they're likely to offer around £2,300 and most solicitors will advice you to accept this.

insurance companies delay making an offer until the solicitor is due to or commences court action and they then make a Part 36 offer. This means if you don't accept and it goes to a hearing, the judge may agree with you and recommend a higher sum but could agree with the insurer and you would then have to pay their costs. So rejecting a Part 36 offer has a risk and this is used effectively to settle claims at a lower than recommended offer.

and remember you have only 3 years within which to start a claim.

sarahg1969

R3negadeuk wrote: »

W 2500 is if the symptoms still affect you up to 12 months after the incident. the latter is an extreme, I have not seen many(if any?) whiplash claims settled this high.

A 12-18 month prognosis is pretty much standard for a whiplash injury these days, from what I've seen. In fact, you can often tell what the prognosis is going to be, just from looking at the medical expert's name on the front page of a report.

tifo

sarahg1969 wrote: »

In fact, you can often tell what the prognosis is going to be, just from looking at the medical expert's name on the front page of a report.

You're implying the medical report is misleading the insurer? Doesn't that sound like tarnishing a professional because of his trade?

tifo

some solicitors may extend the settlement period so they can keep adding fees and this will be stopped by the intro of a standard fee for all PI claims. So there is no incentive for them to 'work' any longer on the case than is required. This will help keep the insurer's costs down.

geri1965_2

There are standard fees already on motor claims.

tifo

geri1965 wrote: »

There are standard fees already on motor claims.

No, i mean standard flat fee for solicitors, i.e. £1,500 allowed per claim.

sarahg1969

tifo wrote: »

You're implying the medical report is misleading the insurer? Doesn't that sound like tarnishing a professional because of his trade?

Maybe, but the fact is that we know what to expect from certain experts. I'm not the one writing the reports. In fact, some of these experts can provide an 18-month prognosis for someone who, after investigations, turns out not to even have been involved in an accident. That's the trouble with straightforward whiplash injuries. There are no real objective tests.

tifo

sarahg1969 wrote: »

Maybe, but the fact is that we know what to expect from certain experts.

it also depends on how the client is behaving. it's like 'mental' illnesses such as stress and depression, it's very hard to prove the client wrong and so the benefit of doubt is given.

Crazy_Jamie

tifo wrote: »

No, i mean standard flat fee for solicitors, i.e. £1,500 allowed per claim.

Whilst the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson in terms of costs put forward a development of the fixed costs regime that geri was referring to, a single flat fee for solicitors across all personal injury claims is not the solution that you seem to think it is. In fact, it could never work within the industry as a whole. Lest we forget that in addition to straightforward whiplash claims, there are also catastrophic claims at the other end of the spectrum that can take an extremely long time to legitimately resolve. A suggestion that the same flat should fee should apply in cases like that as to minor whiplash injuries is clearly unworkable in practice.