offered compensation; do i take the first offer?

lola_r_hamster

Hi all,

I was driven into by a lorry about 6 mths ago and they have only just offered a settlement. My friend has told me to NOT accept the first offer of compensation and they will improve the offer. I have never been in a personal injury claim before and so I dont really understand. Does anyone have any experience of this and is this true, that they might improve the Offer/

thanks

Lola

InsideInsurance

I am all for not dragging things out unnecessarily as Time = Money = Cost = Higher premiums for everybody

That said, if you were to reject it and put in a counter offer the "worst" that is likely to happen is that they reiterate the offer but under part 36 of the CPR which you can then accept and your no worse off. Now of cause there is a slim chance that upon rejecting an offer they review the file and decide the original offer was too generous and thus make a lower second offer this is very unusual to happen in anything but major multi-track cases

alistair.long

InsideInsurance wrote: »

That said, if you were to reject it and put in a counter offer the "worst" that is likely to happen is that they reiterate the offer but under part 36 of the CPR which you can then accept and your no worse off. Now of cause there is a slim chance that upon rejecting an offer they review the file and decide the original offer was too generous and thus make a lower second offer this is very unusual to happen in anything but major multi-track cases

This is a little tricky as my understanding is that you should not say refuse but let it lapse. if later they give you a lower offer you can say I want the bigger offer even after the 21 days or x days.
The exception is if the offer is formally retracted.

As for compensation if you have recovered all your losses resulting from the claim which you would not have otherwise had. and the left over would be your personal injury compenstion.

If you like the offer you can accept, if you dont like it you can tell them to try again, or you give a offer. Get advice from your solicitor as he should know how much you should be getting

lola_r_hamster

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I am all for not dragging things out unnecessarily as Time = Money = Cost = Higher premiums for everybody

That was partly why i didnt go with Albany, because they up the cost etc. My own insurance legal cover dealt with it and it has taken them from 24/12/10 (date of accident) to 22/06/11 to give me back my £300 excess and make this offer which is under £2k. So it isnt a really generous offer considering loses and injuries.

Thanks for the advice, Lola

mikey72

Like everything, they never make a serious offer first, they expect you to bargain.
As for increasing premiums for everyone, that's what the insurance is there for.
We all pay a small amount into the pool, then when someone needs to claim out of the pool, that's what they do.
The problem is the companies don't like paying out, so they drag the claims out for longer.

InsideInsurance

If your insurers have provided legal then they should be able to advise if the offer is reasonable given the extent of the injury and what it said in the medical report/ GP notes

Dangermac

mikey72 wrote: »

Like everything, they never make a serious offer first, they expect you to bargain.
As for increasing premiums for everyone, that's what the insurance is there for.
We all pay a small amount into the pool, then when someone needs to claim out of the pool, that's what they do.
The problem is the companies don't like paying out, so they drag the claims out for longer.

Given that you know that the offer is too low, could you advise exactly how much the offer should be. That would probably help the OP.

DM

Crazy_Jamie

lola_r_hamster wrote:

My friend has told me to NOT accept the first offer of compensation and they will improve the offer.

If your friend has the necessary legal training and experience to roughly value your injury based on basic information, then I suggest you also ask him what a reasonable value for your injury would be. Otherwise I would resist the temptation to take guesses as to the reasonableness of the offer based on perceived 'principles' and actually find someone who can tell you whether or not the offer is one that you should take based on the value of your injury.

There are a few people who may be able to do it on here for you with some basic information as to your injury (i.e. nature of the injury and prognosis), but if you have legal representation they should provide you with advice as to how reasonable the offer is. The one thing you should not do is resist the offer on the basis that it is a 'first offer' without assessing it, which would be ridiculous.

mikey72

Fair comments, take legal advice, then hold out for more.

Mrs_Ryan

I refused the first offer I got in my case - my solicitor valued my case at almost 3 times what I was offered. :eek: It seems what I got offered at first was a 'standard' offer - I spoke to other people in my position claiming from the same company and they all said exactly the same thing. I was going to accept but I'm glad I took advice first (I did speak with my solicitor to ask her what her opinion was before I refused) so all I can say is get some professional advice before you make a decision.

chanz4

thanks Apil for spamming, but as you have a newbie alert sign so welcome!