compensation

[gerbil]

hi just wondering if anyone knows about compensation claims for personal injury.
basically someone hit me from behind last year on my way to rivington barn, they admitted liability and i'm insured fully comp.
i went to the doctors cause i had a bad headache for three days after and she said it was probably whiplash (i did tell her that i had no neck problems just a headache). anyway the solicitor got the notes off my doctor but all they said was i had been into the surgery about the headache and i hadn't been back since so she assumes that i am now ok. since then the solicitor has told me the third party has made an offer of two hundred quid and she thinks i should accept it.
is this solicitor right or is she just some lazy ass who can't be bothered dealing with a biker
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[mchaggis]

Are you now okay? If so, then where's the problem? £200 for having a headache for three days is a fantastic return. If she paid out for the bike to get fixed, and you only suffered minor symptoms which rapidly went away, I don't see what the problem is.

If you're trying to pretend that you've got/ had illnesses and injuries that you haven't, it makes you just as bad as the car driver who claims for whiplash when you run into their side at 20mph.
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[gerbil]

i,m not trying to claim for false injuries thats why i told the doctor there was NOTHING WRONG WITH MY NECK.
the doctor told me it was whiplash, it wasn't self diagnosis.
The reason i'm asking is because my husband was involved in a similar incident and was offered over a grand, so no i'm not trying to be a money grabber the insurance told me to claim and i'm just trying to find out what the score is
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[mchaggis]

Ah, fair enough. My apologies.

If you're being offered money for nothing, then it's something of a dilema, and not something I'd like to have hanging over me.
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Mmmm, Guinness
Discovering the delights of Hammerite and a 3/4" brush.

[Ste]

Could be worth speaking with another solicitor to see if they think you'd have a case against the insurance company for more than £200.

There are some suggestions of personal injury solicitors in this thread which should be of more help and some who are interested in dealing with bikers.

[gerbil]

wicked, thanks for that, plenty to choose from there.
noticed you needed one too, how did you get on?
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[T.C]

Every injury has a value and this is laid down by the Judicial Services Review Board and are the values that solicitors, insurance companies and courts must abide by.

The top value in this country (unlike the USA) is £275,000 for a serious head injury whilst at the other end of the scale a broken tooth is worth around £600.

When coming to a valuation, pain and suffering, inconvenience and the level of incapacity is all taken into account, and then when a figure is arrived at, a deduction may be made if there is any degree of contributory negligence (I repeat "May" be deducted)

A whiplash starts at around the £1,000 mark and any figure over £1,000 means that the solicitor will get their costs back from the defendants, any figure under £1,000 then the defendants are not liable for costs.

If all you had for a few days was a headache then a few hundred is about right, however if your injuries were more severe then the valuation increases proprtionaly with interest backdated to the date of the injury itself.

It is unlikely that the solicitor is going to give you a figure that reduces the chances of them recovering their costs unless they genuinely believe that it is unrealistic to claim more.

Bear in mind that if they were on a success fee of say 50%, then they would push for a much higher figure (unless they are on predictable costs which were introduced towards the back end of last year) as they would lose the 50% enhancement on their fee's.

Based on experience, the figure sounds about right!
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[gerbil]

thanks TC i can tell by your profile that you know your business
very much appreciated.x
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[Flip]

https://www.clearanswers.co.uk/howmuch.html

I've no idea how accurate this guide is but it may be of help to people. Just click on the body part you've injured.

(Hopefully getting some compo for the broken arm I received the end of last year.)

[gerbil]

wow how cool is that
no way can you get compo for hair damage
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[T.C]

Head injury is way off (unless it includes what i am about to explain). As I said, £275,000 is the maximum award.

When you hear of settlements in the millions, this is not for the injury, but for the specialist care that will be required to look after them for the rest of their life. It will take into account the cost of adapting their accommodation, specialist care needs, loss of earnings until age 65 and with this in mind it will also take into account what their earnings or occupation was at the time of the injury. For a student at University either exam results will be looked at or their tutors interviewed to ascertain what sort or grade of degree they would have earned (assuming they are incapable of finishing their degree), the subject they were taken and then the average earnings of those with a similar degree.

It is estimated that if someone at the age of 21 is awarded £5million and allowing for good investment, that money will have run out by the age of 65, so unlike the USA you do not get rich with PI claims in the UK.

If someone under the age of 18 is killed in a traffic accident, their next of kin will get no more than £10K plus reasonable funeral costs, over the age of 18 and with no responsibility or dependants, then nothing is awarded except reasonable burial costs,
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It is better to arrive 30 seconds late in this world, than 30 years early in the next

[rossidude46]

you can not always be sure of any long term effects, so perhaps you should wait a while and see if any other symptoms show up

you have 3 years i think from the time of the accident to make a claim, so no need to accept a hurried settlement. i had an accident that eventually required a new hip 6 years after the accident, and if i had accepted the 1st offer, made less then a year after the accident, that would not have taken into account the hip. my claim took 9 years to finalise in the end.

[gerbil]

[gerbil]