Is it worth going through Admiral Law personal for injury claim?

bex88

Hi all,

On Monday, my younger brother was involved in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver. His little old car is a write off and the lady said to us on the phone he doesn't have motor legal protection on his policy, and that Admiral Law will be in contact about his injuries. 

Mum took him to walk-in hospital for a checkup the day after, he had whacked his leg on the steering column and said it was painful. They did x-rays and no fractures but said he has ligament damage that could take 12 weeks to get better. 

Admiral law have sent a letter, received today, giving 2 options.

Option 1: for whiplash type injuries, to pursue his own claim through a government portal (free)

Option 2: Alternatively admiral law can provide assistance via self service online account....the agreement would be they will change no more than 25% of compensation as their fee. In addition to the fee, also the cost of a supportive insurance policy.... only pay if successful...Etc...

So question is... Is it really worth it going through them for his type of injury?

Thanks for any advice!

Mildly_Miffed

Seems from here that bruising/ligament/soft-tissue injuries like this are the same ballpark as whiplash.

They'll get better in time, no lasting damage, no or minimal expenses arising.
Small payout, no great discussion or debate about the fairly standardised rate.

Their 25% won't get you much attention from anything other than a disinterested minimum-wage paper-pusher.

bex88

Thank you @Mildly_Miffed , please excuse me for sounding stupid, but I'm not too sure what you are suggesting is the best option, or if indeed you are/aren't suggesting anything? 😅 haha.

I'm thinking maybe we just give Admiral Law a call anyway and see what they say?

Arunmor

I assume Admiral is his insurer?  If so they will be trying to settle for the lowest amount.

At this stage contact your own insurers and appraise them of what has happened and take their advice.

But you don't want to do anything yet until the injury has cleared, in the meantime you want to collect all your medical appointments, x-rays etc and keep them on file.

In the meantime do some research into ballpark figures.

Car_54

Mildly_Miffed said:

Their 25% won't get you much attention from anything other than a disinterested minimum-wage paper-pusher.

Probably uninterested as well.

DullGreyGuy

Arunmor said:

I assume Admiral is his insurer?  If so they will be trying to settle for the lowest amount.

Whiplash, and associated soft tissue injuries, following an RTA is a fixed tariff. There is no "lowest" or "highest" amount, there is a single amount. 12 weeks is £240 for soft tissue injury or £260 with soft tissue and modest psychological damage. 


Option 2 is a conditional funding agreement, otherwise known as "no win, no fee". For personal injury the legal limit of success fee is 25% so they are offering no favours. That said, if the claim is limited to a minor soft tissue injury you won't get a vastly better offer from someone else. 

Perhaps this is one of those things that its worth sitting on and see how things go. You have 3 years to make a claim for injuries so no need to rush into a rash decision. If it is getting better after a few weeks I would seriously consider using the injury portal as the above number are the minimum damages available 

bex88

@Arunmor Admiral is my brother's insurance and on the phone they said they will get Admiral Law to contact him. No idea about the third party's insurance.

Thanks @DullGreyGuy for breaking it down. My brother has been diagnosed ASD and the whole ordeal was very stressful for him and he does feel anxious about getting driving again, but still wants to. He cannot currently use a clutch though as his leg is too painful, so is going to wait at least a couple weeks to see how that is.

Does Admiral law also provide possibly getting his excesses back too, as it's non-fault - or is that done just by Admiral car insurance themselves? We have no idea as not been through this before. 

DullGreyGuy

bex88 said:
Does Admiral law also provide possibly getting his excesses back too, as it's non-fault - or is that done just by Admiral car insurance themselves? We have no idea as not been through this before. 

If he had Legal Expenses then yes they would independently of if he claims for injury or not. 

If he decides not to claim for an injury, given he doesn't have LE, then Admiral Law wouldn't be interested in just doing an excess recovery because they cannot then claim any costs from the third party on non-injury cases unless the recovery is over £10k.

Recovering your excess however is not a difficult task to do once your insurer has agreed liability with the third party insurer. That said, because the third party was drunk at the time it is likely to notably extend the timescales as many policies have an exclusion if the driver is drunk... the law requires them to ultimately pay your claim and then they can reclaim it from the driver but it slows things down whilst they make enquiries

bex88

Thanks again @DullGreyGuy for explaining that. We explained to my brother and his decision has been to go through Admiral Law, especially as he would like to additionally get the excess recovered (£650). He's spoke to them and filled in as much as he can on the online forms, but of course, need to wait to fully submit it all until we know about how long his injuries will take to get better etc... 

bex88

Hi again,

Update: so he is in the process of going through with admiral law, he's uploaded pics, any info he has etc... and they are are going to get a medical company to contact him for appointment. But just yesterday, he's had an email from 'One Call Claims' saying about going through them and their client (the third party) has admitted liability. What is this about, does he respond? Forward to admiral law? Or just ignore?

Ectophile

If he has already signed up to Admiral Law, then he should pass the email on to them.  The thing about "no win no fee" contracts is that if you back out of them, then your solicitor will charge you for everything they have done.  It's only no fee if you support them through to the end of the claim.