personal injury claim

mary_hinge

Early last year I was involved in a car accident which left me with whiplash injuries. My car was hit from behind at a junction, The other party admitted liability for the accident and paid for my car to be repaired but are disputing my injuries under the title of low velocity impact.

We are 15months in to the claim now and they are showing no signs of settling my claim, a date for court has been set for 3 months time. I have physio notes, Dr medical report, letters from work detailing my times off etc.... but the other party are carrying out what seems like a fishing expedition and I don't like the way it is making me feel. Not content with a letter outlining my time off they requested my whole personal file from work, they have asked for a breakdown of my gym membership, my phone records, a credit check etc.... I feel like I am been harassed :mad:

I have nothing to hide and my injuries were real, but I feel uncomfortable that they are on a mission to prove I am a liar and a unfavorable character.

My solicitors seem confident we will win this if we go to court but seem to be doing little in the mean time to settle this..... the other party has submitted false witness statements made, obvious dependencies etc....

Does anyone have any experience with this? I hate that I am been made to feel like the guilty party in all this

Thanks

Mrs H x

Quentin

It's all procedure (tactics).

The other side will want to avoid court if at all possible, just put up with the procedures, and of course do everything through your own solicitor (don't respond directly to the other side unless instructed to by your solicitor)

As the court date approaches this may all get resolved in time to call off the hearing.

InsideInsurance

Your paying your solicitors to defend you but youre asking a public forum as to what to do rather than them?

Your solicitors should be the ones to advise you of what is normal, how to handle the enquiries and the consequences of pushing back on any of them.

It is common for people to feel the claims process is fairly intrusive even when claims are not disputed and a lot of information is required to deal with things like loss of earnings, PSLA etc

mary_hinge

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Your paying your solicitors to defend you but youre asking a public forum as to what to do rather than them?

Your solicitors should be the ones to advise you of what is normal, how to handle the enquiries and the consequences of pushing back on any of them.

It is common for people to feel the claims process is fairly intrusive even when claims are not disputed and a lot of information is required to deal with things like loss of earnings, PSLA etc

over the last 15months I have had 5 different people within the company deal with my claim, they appear to have little or no time to answer my questions and regularly ignore my emails. When I finally mange to speak to someone they shake of this feeling as normal and tell me it will settle our way.

InsideInsurance

mary_hinge wrote: »

over the last 15months I have had 5 different people within the company deal with my claim, they appear to have little or no time to answer my questions and regularly ignore my emails. When I finally mange to speak to someone they shake of this feeling as normal and tell me it will settle our way.

There are a lot of factory claims companies where this is the case but ultimately they are your solicitors and are representing you so should be earning their money

Go back to them and if they dont answer etc then follow their complaints process. At least that way you generally will get to speak to an actual solicitor rather than a fee earner

OnanTheBarbarian

I deal with RTA PI claims for a living, I don't work for a factory firm.

Insurers have a pretty horrendous record of defending these "low velocity impact" claims and ultimately they lose 99% of them at court.

It sounds like you have a factory firm acting for you where the staff dealing have far too many cases each in order to be able to do a proper job.

The other side are just sniping, hoping that something can dent your credibility as whiplash is a very difficult condition to diagnose and essentially the insurers' case is "anyone can say they have whiplash and go to their GP to get a sick note and take a couple of weeks off work".

So their requests to get your Gym attendance etc will be because somewhere in the medical report it will say you could not attend the gym for x amount of months etc. So if they catch you out on this, it gives them some ammunition to attack your credibility and essentially day to the court that if you have exaggerated about your gym attendance, have you exaggerated the extent of any injury.

Honesty wins the day, so if you put up a good clean fight, odds are your claim will either succeed at court, or the other side will retreat before it gets that far.

Crazy_Jamie

Has Onan has said, the first thing you need to be aware of is that Lew Velocity Impact arguments are reasonably common, and insurers lose the vast majority of them. The reason why they lose the vast majority of them is because irrespective of their own suspicions and the evidence that they uncover, these cases simply come down to whether or not the Judge at trial believes that the Claimant is telling the truth. And usually they are. All you need to be

My solicitors seem confident we will win this if we go to court but seem to be doing little in the mean time to settle this

As has been said already, it does sound like you're being passed around a factory firm, which isn't ideal but it is unlikely to prejudice your case in this particular instance, mainly because your credibility as a witness is unlikely to be undermined by something that your solicitor has done or not done. I understand how you feel about the settlement activity, or lack of it, but remember that your solicitor can't negotiate a settlement if the other side won't play ball. Settlement is a two way street.