Personal Injury Claims: What You Need to Know When Making a Claim

Some people use personal injury claims as a quick way to make a bit of money. This is heavily frowned upon, and often thrown out of court. Instead, personal injury claims are for those people how have suffered loss because of an injury. If you're thinking about making a claim, it’s important that you have a basic understanding of the process, and we’re going to teach you this below.

 Which Injuries Count as a Personal Injury?

A personal injury can be either physical or psychological. It can be an injury, a disease, or an illness. For example, if you developed asbestosis because of poor working conditions, that is a disease that is classified as a personal injury. Or, if your boss bullied you to the point of a severer depressive episode, that is a personal injury too.

As you can see, the term “personal injury” covers many issues. If you’re unsure as to whether your particular issue counts as a personal injury, then simply get in touch with a relevant solicitors, or the Citizens Advice Bureau, and they will be able to offer you further advice.

When Can You Claim for a Personal Injury?

You can only claim for a personal injury that wasn’t your fault. For instance, if you’re at work and you develop asbestosis, you can claim against your employer. If you’re in a car accident, suffered an injury, and the other party has admitted/been proved to have liability, then you can claim against them.

What you can’t do is claim for a personal injury that was your fault. For example, if you don’t look when crossing a road, and someone hits you, it’s unlikely that you can make a claim. So long as there’s evidence that you didn’t look, then it’s extremely unlikely that you will receive any money for the claim.

Where Can You Go for Help?

There are two options when looking for compensation for a personal injury, so let’s look at each in turn:

1. You can use a personal injury solicitor. You will find them in most towns in the UK, from personal injury solicitors Blackburn to the Isle of Wight; they’re the most popular choice for people looking for compensation. When choosing your personal injury solicitor, choose one that offers “no win no fee”. This way, if you do not win the case, you will not have to pay the solicitor. Make sure that you take out insurance beforehand, because if you lose, you will have to pay the fees for the other side; this is something many people fail to realise, but it is vastly important that you know this before you accept a “no win no fee” option.

2. Claims management services: these are businesses set up primarily to obtain compensation on behalf of injured people. They may or may not use solicitors. If they don’t, it means that they are not passing through the courts, and this means that your compensation is not protected in the same way as it would be in a legal case. In other words, they're likely to keep a larger proportion of the compensation for themselves. We would recommend doing a lot more research when opting for this route.

If you would like further help and advice about personal injury, then please visit acsols