Financial losses

A lot of people automatically think about the amount awarded for personal injury when discussing the value of a claim, but the financial losses can often be significant.  These include 'property damage' items, such as the damage to a car, personal clothing or accessories (helmet and leathers in a motorcycle claim for example) and replacement vehicle costs.

There are also a number of different financial losses which are more often linked to the injuries sustained, including:

• medical treatment & assessment fees, including consultant's fees, x-rays, MRI scans, as well as the cost of treatment such as physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathic treatment.  This could also include the cost of surgery in more severe cases
• travelling and parking expenses to various appointments
• medication costs – these can include both 'over the counter' medication and prescription charges
• loss of earnings if there has been time off of work
• care and assistance – if you have paid for someone to carry out domestic chores such as gardening or shopping because you've been unable to do theem yourself, you may be able to recover the cost.  If friends and family have undertaken these tasks for free, a claim may still be possible

The key here is to ensure you are completely open with us about the way you've been affected by your injury, so we can highlight areas of investigation and make appropriate enquiries.

In more serious cases, it may be that you will continue to suffer financial loss on an ongoing basis – for example if as a result of your injury, you were only able to work part time for the foreseeable future.  In those cases, we're able to project the claim forward to calculate your future losses, and include them in your settlement.

Personal injury

As well as financial losses, you may of course be entitled to compensation for the injuries you have sustained.  The assessment of damages in a case is based on a wide range of factors, including:

• the type of injury
• whether multiple injuries have been sustained
• the severity of the injury
• the duration of the injury
• the extent to which the injury has affected your day to day life
• the extent to which the injury may have affected your leisure pursuits & pastimes
• the extent to which the injury may affect your long-term position on the labour market
• the level of treatment required
• whether you have a relevant pre-existing medical history (i.e. whether you have suffered previous problems in the area affected by the accident)

When assessing how much compensation tom expect, we'll consider the medical expert's findings and your instructions on as many of the above factors as are applicable.  Each element of the claim can then be weighed up and a valuation produced.

One important factor is that our advice must reflect the level of compensation which we feel you might be awarded if the matter were assessed by a Judge at Court.  We cannot advise you on what we feel you 'deserve', but instead we must give objective advice on what we feel you would receive if a judge were to decide your case.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes true that claimants do not feel the level of damages awarded under English and Welsh law is particularly fair or reasonable, but this is beyond our control.  We must simply focus on recovering the absolute maximum for you that we can within the legal framework as it currently stands.

How are damages assessed?

As we've already said, the medical expert's evidence, and your own is carefully considered.  We then look to compare your case with previously decided cases which have been heard at court and then published or put online.  These are called precedents.  By comparing your case to similar cases that have already been assessed at court , we can provide you with an accurate assessment of how much compensation to expect were your case to be heard by a judge.

We may refer to the Judicial Studies Board guidelines, which are used by the courts.  These give broad brackets for specific types of injury and can be useful as a starting point for valuing a claim.

Once all the issues have been considered we'll provide you with a bracket of awards for your claim and, of course, seek to obtain a settlement for you at the highest figure possible.

General

Our goal is always to recover the maximum amount for you that we can, whether this is by negotiation or issuing court proceedings.  We're hugely experienced in both approaches to claims and able to use that experience to maximise your potential for achieving a successful outcome to your claim.  We will look at all aspects of your claim and do everything possible to ensure every item and issue arising from it is considered and included in the settlement.

As you've seen, it is essential we have clear and detailed instructions from you on a number of issues, as this will help us to identify the potential losses which need to be investigated.  The sooner we are able to start those investigations, the better. So it is important that you notify us of any issues/losses you believe are linked to your incident/injury at an early stage.

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