Guide to Making a Claim

Contact one of our team: You will be immediately put in touch with one of our solicitors who will arrange a convenient appointment and visit you at a location of choice. We guarantee a home visit by a solicitor within three hours of your call (should you prefer a remote consultation this can be arranged).

A solicitor will meet with you face-to-face and take relevant details about your accident or injury. This means you won’t have to fill in lengthy forms. The information we will collect depends on the claim you are making: Accidents at work: circumstances of accident, witnesses, location, previous problems and names of involved parties e.g. full title of your employer. Road traffic accident: name, address of the person who caused the accident, registration number.

If you were hit by an uninsured or untraced driver do not worry – see our guide to making a claim to the MIB.

For Serious Injury only: Depending on the severity of your injuries we will arrange an immediate needs assessment with Bush & Co. See their guide to an immediate needs assessment; the cost will be paid for by the insurers.

The solicitor opens a file immediately. We will send you our ‘no win, no fee’ agreement and medical mandate in the post. The ‘no win, no fee’ agreement is called the Conditional Fee Agreement and confirms that if you lose there is nothing to pay. This is our contract with you. If you win all you pay is the success fee.

At this time you will also sign a medical mandate form, if relevant, giving us permission to use your medical notes. We will apply for your GP and hospital notes so we can instruct a medical expert to prepare a report on your injuries if necessary.

We will send a claim form to the insurers for the person or company that caused your injury or accident. The time the insurer has to respond depends on your claim: we will advise you of the time periods in the client care documentation.

We will advise you when we instruct a medical expert.  The expert contacts you directly with an appointment for an examination.  For serious injury cases, this can happen many months after your initial meeting with a solicitor to enable the injury to settle down.  For other claims, it depends on the nature of the injury.

The medical expert writes a report on your injuries and sends it to us. We place a valuation on your claim based on the report.

• Serious Injury: these cases can take time to settle, often between 18 months and 3 years. This is because, to enable the proper assessment as to the value of your claim, there needs to be a clear opinion and prognosis from a medical expert. Serious Injuries may include: Head and Brain Injuries, Spinal Cord Injuries, Burns, Amputation or Loss of Limb
• Interim payments can be sought from the insurer. Immediately after instructing us we can lend you, interest free, up to £2500 before the insurer is willing to make an interim payment.

To find out more about how a claim is valued take a look at our article on how compensation is calculated.

After speaking with you, we send a copy of the report and detail settlement proposals to your opponent’s insurer. Your opponent’s insurer will confirm if liability is admitted or denied:

• Liability admitted: If liability is admitted then we negotiate monetary settlement on your behalf, subject to your instructions. If a settlement is reached then your damages are paid to you by cheque. We will then seek to agree costs with your opponent’s insurer. If the insurer does not offer reasonable settlement terms then we will issue Court Proceedings (if you wish).
• Liability denied: If liability is denied the insurer must give proper reasons for a denial, supported by documentary evidence as appropriate. We will then come back to you to build a claim against the opponent. Initially, we will attempt to negotiate with the opponent. Should they maintain their denial or fail to offer a reasonable settlement proposal we will issue Court Proceedings if we believe your claim has a reasonable chance of succeeding.