FURTHER EVOLUTION OF DIY CLAIM
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
A while back I have blogged on how you, the reader, can if you so wish, pursue a claim on your own without the benefit of a lawyer.
On 30 April 2010, a new and quicker method of making a claim for road traffic accidents comes into play and you can do this yourself.
How will it work: Stage I
You can, if you have access to the internet visit a portal to complete a claim form. This is known as Stage 1.
Hopefully if you have followed our previous advice at the scene of the accident you will have taken down your opponent’s full name, address, motor registration number and the name and address of the insurance company, together with the policy number.
You can complete the form with all the above details and submit it through the portal to your opponents insurer.
The agreement provides the opponent insurers to reply to you within a specific time, either with acceptance of legal responsibility or denying the claim.
Stage 2:
You should collate your medical records in this period and obtain a medico-legal opinion to support your claim for personal injury.
The second stage is again a standard form on the portal. You will be required to complete this form, disclose your medical report, and any evidence in support of your claim for financial loss.
Stage two also requires you forward your own offer as to what you will accept in settling your claim.
If the insurer accepts your offer, he will let you know and pay the amount accepted and agreed within a specific time. If he accepted legal responsibility but does not accept your valuation of the claim, you need to move to stage three.
Stage 3:
As you cannot agree the valuation of your claim you will need to have this determined by a County Court. This stage requires you to complete a designed form, submit this to your local Court and the Court will let you both know of its decision. Once both of you are notified of the Court’s decision the insurers will be required to pay the amount assessed by the Court within a specific time.
The rules are bought in to introduce fixed fees for your solicitor at each stage. If your claim is handled by a solicitor, your solicitor will be paid £250.00 for Stage 1, £800.00 if the claim is settled at Stage 2 and a further £500.00 if the claim is settled at Stage 3.
If you submit your claim on your own, you can not recover these fixed fees.
The system was introduced so that if you hire a lawyer, a lawyer recovers fixed set fees for stages 1, 2 and 3. Therefore, why have the stress, pressure and allow the insurer to capitalise on your inexperience, when in fact you can hire an experienced solicitor, who will handle this claim and will recover your costs (fixed costs) from the insurers.
Whilst the system will be supervised and managed by the Ministry of Justice, there is plenty of evidence that experienced claim handlers will try to use their experience and will wish to settle the claim as cheaply as possible.
Our recommendation would be to always seek independent legal advice, preferably direct from a lawyer as opposed to a claim farmer. It is of no cost to you, as we would limit our costs to those recovered from the other side on fixed costs basis, leaving you to keep all of your damages.
This scheme comes into play on 30 April. Should you require any other information, please do not hesitate to contact us via our dedicated personal injury website www.lawclaim.net