The Claim Process

Claims Process
	Initial action
	Liability
	Mitigation & Losses
	The value of your claim
Compensation for injuries
Compensation for financial losses
Replacement vehicle costs
	What if the insurers will not deal with your claim?
	What happens if the other party is uninsured or cannot be traced?
	Emergency hospital treatment

The insurers may not formally concede liability even if they think you do have a claim that they have to meet. What often happens is that the insurers will write to us on a "without prejudice" basis telling us that they would like to try to negotiate a settlement of the claim with us. By doing this, the insurers are not committing themselves to make you a payment of damages in settlement of your claim. If a settlement cannot be negotiated they may still argue that you do not have a claim which they have to meet. If it becomes necessary to take your case to Court it is often because it has not been possible to negotiate a settlement.

(a) Compensation for your injuries:
Lawyers refer to this part of your claim as "General Damages", or damages for "pain and suffering and loss of amenity". In other words, for the injuries you have suffered and the effects which they have had on such things as your work, your hobbies or your social and domestic life.

We will make arrangements to obtain a medical report from a Doctor about your injuries. This Doctor could be a General Practitioner, a Doctor who treated you if you had to go to Hospital for treatment because of your accident or another Doctor or specialist. We will generally use an agency to make the arrangements for you to see the Doctor or Specialist.

The Doctor who examines you may need to see all your medical records. We will send you forms of authority for them to be released which you must complete in full and return to us as soon as possible. You must tell the Doctor or Specialist about all of the injuries that you sustained in the accident and the effect of those injuries on all aspects of your life. Obviously the Doctor or Specialist will not be able to include in his report any details or information which you failed to provide at the time of the examination. When we receive the medical report we will send you a copy and if necessary, we will discuss the medical report with you on the telephone.

(i) Loss of Earnings - If you have been off work as a result of your accident you may have lost earnings either because your employers do not have a Company sick pay scheme or, if they do, perhaps because you have lost out on overtime or bonuses which you would have earned had you been at work.

We will write to your employers to obtain details of your earnings before your accident and details of payments you received when you were off work. We will calculate your loss of earnings from this information and get you to check the figures. When this has been done we will forward the calculation to the insurers.

Sometimes employers who have made payments under a company sick pay scheme want to be reimbursed if a claim for damages is successful. If this applies to your case, we will obtain details from your employer and pass them on to the insurers. The insurers will accept this as part of your claim provided there is an agreement between you and your employers for the payments to be reimbursed in these circumstances.

If you have been off work as a result of your accident you may have received statutory sick pay. Although this does not have to be repaid by the insurers if they make you a payment of compensation, any other DSS benefits that you have received do have to be repaid.

If you are self employed we will need to see copies of your audited accounts and/or other supporting documents to assist in substituting your loss of earnings claim. We may also need to correspond with your accountant to assist us in proving your loss.

(ii) Out of Pocket expenses - Examples of these are travelling expenses for medical treatment, prescriptions, clothing damaged as a result of the accident. It will be helpful if you could keep a note of all such expenses that you incur and keep receipts for all types of expenses you incur. The more receipts that we can show the insurers, the more likely we can recover the full amount on your behalf.

(iii) You may have claims for the excess on your insurance policy, the repairs to your vehicle, loss of use of the vehicle whilst repairs were being carried out and storage or recovery charges. If your vehicle is beyond economical repair (written off) as a result of the accident, the amount that can be recovered is the pre-accident market value.

(c) Replacement Vehicle Costs (Hire Charges)

You may recover the cost of hiring a replacement motor vehicle if that cost is reasonably incurred and provided you have followed your duty to mitigate your losses (see Section 6 above). Your Legal Expense Insurer, broker or repairing garage may have introduced you to a hire company who will provide you with a replacement vehicle and delay payment of those costs until the conclusion of your claim.

You must inform us immediately if you have the use of such a vehicle. You must also ensure that you retain the vehicle for only the minimum period that is essential to you and return the vehicle to the hire company AS SOON AS YOUR OWN VEHICLE IS REPAIRED OR AN OFFER IN SATISFACTION OF THE WRITE OFF VALUE OF YOUR OWN VEHICLE IS MADE.

You should telephone the person with conduct of your claim when you have had the use of the hire car for 14 days and we will advise you regarding the continued hire of the vehicle. Once again, please note that you are under a legal duty to ensure that the losses you suffer as a result of the accident are kept to as small a figure as possible.

Once we have been able to give insurers full details of your claim we will ask them to put forward a settlement offer. We will notify you of that offer and arrange to discuss it with you. We will advise whether we consider that you should accept the offer or whether we should try to negotiate a better offer, or whether we should take your case to Court.