Lawclaim.net Blog

DIY presentation of your personal injury claim – How to claim without the help of a Solicitor or a Claims Company by A. A. Hafezi

In the last ten years, particularly with the Government emphasis on creating strict protocols for all parties to abide by, it is possible for you as a member of the public, if you happen to be a victim of civil wrong, to present your claim direct to the wrongdoer and/or their insurers or legal representatives.

Whilst you may say that, I, as a lawyer, would advocate legal help rather than doing it yourself. Should you wish to present your own claim as matters now stand it can be done in the following way (below details the procedure for road traffic accidents but the principle remains the same for other types of claims such as accidents at work or accidents in a public place):

Pre-action Protocol:

If, either as a passenger, driver or pedestrian, you have suffered an injury as a result of another motorist’s fault and provided you have followed our recommendations as to what you should do at the scene of the accident, you will need to take the following steps:

1. You must write to the driver, with an extra copy for his insurers, a letter. This is called “a letter of claim”. It should give your personal details, including date of birth, National Insurance number, date of the accident and your version of what happened at the scene of the accident.

2. You also need to tell the other driver briefly what injuries you have suffered.

3. You then need to set out why you believe it was the other driver’s fault. Whilst this is a technical issue and should involve a lawyer, you can as a guideline, rely on the Highway Code, which I hope you still remember from your learning to drive days. Set out. the Highway Code you consider the other driver has breached, and that would be the grounds of your claim in negligence.

4. You should then set out that if they are to deny liability, they should let you have standard documents, i.e. copy of the MOT, DVLA documents, insurance details.

5. You should tell them they have twenty one days to acknowledge the letter and three months to reply as to whether or not they will accept your claim or reject it. If they are to reject your claim they should set out the reasons for doing so and any documents on which they rely.

6. Ideally at this stage, you should also set out the names of at least two medical experts that you wish to use to support your claim for your injuries. You should also include copies of those expert’s CV’s.

7. If you do not have a response within twenty one days, or they reject liability but agree your choice of medical expert, you should obtain your records from the GP and from the hospital that you attended. You write a letter of instruction to the expert for his expert opinion.

8. Once the medical expert is available, you can under the Civil Procedure Rules make an offer to the other side as to what you are prepared to accept in settlement of your claim. You should give them twenty-one days to do so.

(It is here that you need advice and assistance of lawyers. Your opponent’s claim handler or legal representative will be an experienced person who handles claims on a daily basis. They will have available to them all current legal authorities on the value of your claim. Their aim is to pay you as little as possible and you would be at a serious disadvantage if you presented this as a layman to them).

9. In all likelihood, they may come back with a counter Civil Procedure Rules offer available for you to accept within twenty-one days.

10. You should then negotiate. If you are happy with a figure that they are offering you settle the claim.

11. If you cannot settle the claim then you can start proceedings in your local County Court, relying on your medical expert as evidence in support of your injury claim.

Why you should use solicitors like us:

1. You would be at a serious disadvantage if you presented your claim yourself for a number of reasons.

2. You will be up against a person experienced in this area of law.

3. You will need to instruct a medical expert. This is an art in itself.

4. You need to negotiate. Law students are often taught that only a fool has a lawyer for himself. Therefore representing yourself is never a great idea.

5. Most important of all why DIY if you are able to hire a lawyer whose legal fees will be paid by your opponent in any case.

6.If you do instruct us we do it a no-win-no-fee basis and therefore there is no cost to you at all in any case.

Good luck to you if you do want to do it yourself. If however you do wish to take advantage of having a specialist personal injury solicitor act for you on a No Win-No Fee basis please contact us now on Freephone 0800 389 9136 or alternatively fill in the “call me back” form on lawclaim.net. Please click here to see our procedure for dealing with your claim.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under General Information and News about Personal injury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.