What happens next?
When you or a family member have been severely injured, your priorities are to get the best possible treatment, ensure financial security, and plan for the future. You need help from experts.
Benefits – we help you apply for injury and disability awards.
Local authority support – you may be able to access funds for property alterations and carers.
Rehabilitation – we can arrange access to providers.
Case management and care – we help you set up a suitable support network to provide the care you need.
If you are in hospital or long term rehabilitation you will want to get home as soon as possible, subject to medical advice. You may well need major alterations to your home or to buy a new house suitably adapted to your needs. You may need carers. We will work with you and your medical team. We will obtain reports from experts in all relevant areas such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, accommodation needs, transport, psychotherapy, environmental equipment, and employment rehabilitation.
We apply for an early interim payment of damages to cover the cost of all this. We enjoy good relationships with the major insurers who will usually agree (if they accept liability) to make early payments to fund your needs. They know if they don’t we will not hesitate to use the courts to obtain the necessary funds.
Then it is a matter of time. It can take several years for all the long-term needs of someone with serious injury to become clear. You may want to return to work, or see if you can. Your doctors may give a guarded prognosis at first and there may be treatments to be carried out before a final opinion can be given. Compensation awards are made on a “full and final” basis, and you cannot normally reopen a claim once settled.
All compensation claims have two parts. Liability, and quantum
Liability means establishing the defendant is to blame for the injury. Road accidents caused by driver error, injuries at work where a work colleague does something wrong or work equipment is defective, are straightforward. But because of the amounts involved insurers will often try to blame the injured person to reduce their liability. With our huge experience of every type of claim we will fight to ensure you get the right result. We may need accident reconstruction experts, or to obtain police reports. We will interview witnesses and do whatever is necessary to prove your case.
Quantum means how much the claim is worth. For the injuries themselves awards go up to £250,000. Financial losses are usually very much greater. They depend on how long in the future the money is needed – so a younger person will usually get a higher award – and what the annual cost of care and loss of earnings is. The annual cost is multiplied to arrive at a lump sum, although awards based on monthly payments can be made too. Loss of earnings (in whole or part), care costs, equipment like wheel chairs or adapted vehicles, and property costs are included. The final list will often run to hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds. We know how often family members provide their services to help the injured person, and we ensure the court award of damages includes the value of these.
A summary of a serious injury claim for a young man or woman might be:
| Severe brain injury | £185,000 |
| Family provided care | £250,000 |
| Adapted property | £450,000 |
| Loss of earnings for someone earning £20,000 a year pre-accident | £600,000 |
| Professional care and case management at present annual cost £150,000 | £3,000,000 |
| Physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, speech and language therapy (£3000 a year) | £60,000 |
| Aids and equipment | £80,000 |
Transport (adapted vehicle and wheel chairs) | £100,000 |
| Court of Protection costs | £150,00 |
| TOTAL | £4,885,000 |
Every case is different because each client has individual needs. At a very early stage we will give you our frank assessment of liability and quantum issues so you can plan for the future.
