Thoughts on 'whiplash' settlement offered

toffifee

It can take a while for the pain to emerge. I was hit from behind by a lorry 10 years ago. I had a sore neck for a few days, the bad back only appeared about two weeks later. I had 6 months of physiotherapy (paid for by the other party), before then I couldn't arch my back at all. I got about £2500.
Definitely don't make any hasty decisions - you may not yet know the full extent of your injuries.

the_flying_pig

cheers for the tips.


as per the people I've asked in 'real life', there's a real of opinions out there on this.


I think that, as suggested by one or two others, there's a missing 'wait and see' option, that's what I plan to do.

redmalc

We recently settled for £2400

skivenov

I took £2800 a few years ago, but I had loss of earnings as well (self-employed) and had a suspected tear in a muscle in my neck, which was massively annoying.

superbigal36

Did you plan to claim ?
Not sure why the 3rd party let the cat out of the bag so to speak.

Hoof_Hearted

This is an interesting area. My car was written off when somebody ploughed into the back (I was parked) without braking. I was certainly shaken up and my bones were rattled but I was OK after a few days. I even went to work the same afternoon.

The third party insurers offered me some money for my injuries -- a few hundred pounds -- even though I told them I was not suffering any after effects. I think the plan is to get you to accept the money "in full and final settlement", losing your rights to claim later. If I had longer term injuries, I would have claimed, but I declined their offer.

Everything was settled to my satisfaction but, after renewing my insurance and declaring a no fault accident, I have been hounded by ambulance chasers promising me £3,000 to £4,000 for "discomfort" and as a "carefree" payment, should I wish to claim. I do not wish to commit fraud, however.

In my opinion, only claim if you have suffered a genuine injury which goes on after a few days.

Crazy_Jamie

It really does concern me when a thread like this comes along where a person is asking how much their injury is worth, and what follows is a flood of replies along the lines of "I'd wait, I got three times that amount" or "Sounds low to me, push them for more".

I want to be clear on this; every single valuation or opinion provided by anyone other than a person who has expertise and experience in this area is utterly worthless unless by some extreme twist of fate said person has suffered exactly the same injury as you. Why? Because every case is dealt with and valued on its own facts, the main aspects being recovery period, severity of symptoms and loss of amenity (in other words, things that the injury prevented you from doing).

In terms of the injury specifically, £500 for a two week injury (if that's what this does turn out to be) of the type that you've described isn't actually that far off the mark. But the advice to wait until you are fully recovered is certainly sound. There's no rush to conclude this, and you'll be a in a better position all round to decide whether or not to take the figure offered when you know for sure how long you took to recover.

superbigal36 wrote: »

Not sure why the 3rd party let the cat out of the bag so to speak.

Because paying £500 to ten people who weren't planning on claiming for minor injuries more than makes up for the one that accepts £500 a week after the accident but has actually suffered a permanent injury worth tens of thousands of pounds. It's a money saving exercise for the insurer, and a successful one at that.

Equally, anybody who regularly represents parties at MOJ Stage 3 Hearings (which are basically hearings where the parties disagree on how much a claim is worth, and a Judge comes to a valuation) will tell you that the offers made by insurance companies are normally far too low, which costs them an extra £880 or thereabouts per case for forcing the matter to a hearing. In reality though only about 3% of cases issued via the MOJ Portal go to a Stage 3 hearing, and the vast majority of those low offers are accepted. So overall insurance companies save far more money making low offers to offset the relatively small amount that they lose by pushing the minority of cases to hearings.

Astronaughtwannabe

I thought pre med offer had been abolished in the Jackson reforms?

Crazy_Jamie

Astronaughtwannabe wrote: »

I thought pre med offer had been abolished in the Jackson reforms?

They haven't, despite that at one stage being the intention. Which, if you think about it, does make sense, because it is very difficult to justify preventing parties from settling cases at whichever stage they wish. The only change that has come in is that offers do not have the costs consequences of Part 36 until a medical report has been obtained. So if an insurer makes a pre med offer of £1,500, and six months the medical report comes along and the injury is only worth £1,200, the insurer can't rely on the costs protection from the offer during that six month period. Of course as far as I am aware the vast majority of pre med offers are not made as Part 36 offers because, for a start, most are verbal. As such the actual impact that that change has made is perhaps somewhat questionable.

Astronaughtwannabe

Thanks for that.