Key Stages to Making a Personal Injury Claim

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Key Stages to Making a Claim

• Bakers Solicitors

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1. Initial Instructions

• We will contact you by telephone to discuss the
  circumstances of your accident and advise you
  whether we feel that you have a claim and
  reasonable prospects of success.
• If you wish to instruct our firm we will send you
  our welcome pack and terms of business for you to
  sign and return to us so that we can proceed with
  your claim. We cannot proceed until we receive
  your signed copy.
• You will be assigned a Case Handler who will deal
  with you throughout the life of your claim. If
  however, on the rare instance that your claim
  needs to be handled by a different Case Handler,
  you will be informed of this decision and
  introduced to your new Case Handler.
• All our communication with you will be by letter,
  telephone, fax or email so you do not need to be
  local to our offices. However, occasionally we
  may need to see you in person and in that case we
  will visit you in your area at a time to suit
  you.
• We will require your written instructions at key
  stages of your claim and for the most part we
  will send you appropriate mandate forms for this,
  which are set out in very simple tick box formats
  with a signature request at the bottom. Initially
  there may be some longer forms to complete such
  as our accident questionnaires, however these are
  a necessary part of the process and enable us to
  obtain full details of your accident at the
  outset.

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2. Letter of Claim

• The first step is to prepare a "Letter of Claim"
  which we will send to the Third Party (TP) on
  your behalf. This letter will detail the
  circumstances of the accident and the injuries
  you have sustained, as well as giving the reasons
  why they are considered to be responsible for
  your injury.
• The TP will give this letter to their insurers,
  who have three months from the date of the letter
  to investigate the matter and reply with their
  opinion on where the fault lies.

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3. Collating Evidence

• In the meantime, we will continue to communicate
  with you and collect all the evidence you have to
  prove your claim such as any police reports, GP
  and/or Hospital records, accident book records,
  photographs, witness statements, your statement
  etc.

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4. If Liability is Admitted

• If the TP admits that it was responsible for the
  accident, then the next stage is to quantify the
  injuries part of your claim i.e. how much
  compensation you are entitled to for your
  injuries.

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5. Obtaining Medical Evidence

• We do this by arranging for you to be seen by a
  medical expert in your area who will write a
  medical report about your injuries and how these
  are affecting you. This often takes time as
  medical experts have very busy schedules and
  there may be waiting lists for appointments.
• Again there may be a short delay while we wait
  for the medical report to arrive. Once we receive
  and have reviewed the report, we will send you a
  copy and if you are happy with the report we will
  ask you to sign a mandate form giving us
  permission to send the report to the TPs
  insurers to negotiate settlement.
• If you require physiotherapy or rehabilitation,
  we will help you arrange this and recover the
  costs for you from the TP.

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6. Preparing a Schedule of Financial Losses

• Whilst collecting medical evidence we will
  proceed to prepare a schedule of your financial
  losses. This is a legal document which will list
  all of the financial expenditure you have
  incurred or lost due to your accident and
  subsequent injuries.
• This schedule will include items such as damaged
  clothing, vehicle storage charges, the cost of
  medication, travel expenses to and from medical
  appointments, the cost of rehabilitation, care
  that you may have received from family and/or
  friends whilst injured and lost wages. Please
  keep receipts or evidence of all losses as these
  will be required to prove your financial losses.
• Once we have collected all of your financial
  losses we will send the schedule to you with a
  mandate form for you to sign to confirm that you
  are happy with the contents and to give us
  authority to send this schedule to the TPs
  insurers to negotiate settlement.
• In some cases we can obtain an temporary payment
  from the TP to assist you if you are suffering
  from a loss of earnings or have additional costs
  due to your injuries.

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7. Negotiating Settlement

• You will be informed of any offers we receive
  from the TPs insurers to settle your claim. Your
  Case Handler will be able to give you advice on
  whether the offer is a reasonable one, or whether
  to negotiate for more.
• At times it may be sensible to put forward our
  own offer to settle and your Case Handler can
  advise you whether this is the case in your
  claim.
• Some accidents are partly the fault of the person
  claiming and in these circumstances offers on
  liability may be put forward on a percentage
  basis e.g. the Claimant is 20 responsible for
  their accident and the TP for the remaining 80.
  Again you will be advised by your Case Handler
  whether this is appropriate and the
  reasonableness of the offer.

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8. If Liability is Denied

• If the TP denies that they are responsible for
  your accident then we may need to pursue the
  claim through the Courts.

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9. Protective Proceedings

• The Law states that a Claimant has 3 years from
  the date of their accident in which to make a
  claim. For minors this is extended to 3 years
  after their 18th birthday. This is known as the
  Limitation Period and after this time i.e. by the
  Limitation date, a claim cannot be made.
• In some cases we need to start protective
  proceedings because the claim is nearing the
  Limitation date and liability has not been
  established. In these cases we will file your
  claim with the Courts which enables us to
  continue to pursue your claim after the
  Limitation date has been reached.

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10. Serving Court Proceedings

• If Liability is denied then the case may proceed
  to Court. We will file your claim in the Courts
  of Law and through this process steps to
  negotiate settlement are sometimes obtained.

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11. Going to Trial

• Each case is unique and we will communicate with
  Counsel and your Legal Expense Insurers and
  advise you every step of the way.
• If your case does go to Trial, then you may be
  required to attend a Hearing and/or Counsel
  meeting. We will be with you every step of the
  way and do our best to make this as easy for you
  as possible.

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12. Settlement

• If your claim is successful and you are offered
  compensation and wish to accept the offer, then
  we will send you a mandate form for you to tick
  and sign confirming this.
• Once we receive the signed form we can confirm to
  the TP that their offer is accepted. We then
  await their settlement cheque which is processed
  through our accounts department and your
  compensation is sent to you via automated bank
  transfer or by cheque. Please allow eight working
  days from the time we receive your settlement
  amount to the time you receive it.

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13. Failed Claims

• Sadly not all claims are successful. If the TP
  continues to deny liability and Counsel advise
  that there are low prospects of success if the
  claim goes to Trial, and/or your Legal Expense
  Insurers withdraw indemnity then the case will
  fail. Alternatively claims can go to Trial and
  the case may be lost at that stage.
• The good news in these cases, is that you are not
  responsible to pay any of our costs or
  disbursements if your claim fails.

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14. Feedback

• We are very grateful to all of our clients who
  take the time to complete our feedback forms,
  which we send out at the end of the claim. We
  welcome feedback from our clients - good or bad,
  as through this we can improve on our already
  strong reputation.

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Contact Us

• Bakers Solicitors combine expert legal advice
  through our experienced case handlers with a
  commitment to client care, and use of cutting
  edge technology. If you would like us to handle
  your personal injury claim for compensation, you
  can contact our Expert Personal Injury Lawyers
  using the form below, or by phone on 0800 731
  7284. We provide a free consultation to assess
  your case. - https//www.bakerssolicitors.com/