Car accident

[MGBGT]

Hi Ang

Welcome to PH. I'm sorry to hear of your predicament and I hope you all have a quick recovery.

I know that Insurance payouts are not great and I'm sure that there is a PHer who can give you better financial advice than me.

I must advise you, as this is an ongoing case, to be very careful what you divulge to gain information, as it could affect your rights as a claimant and not to be tempted to involve some of these 'No Win, No Fee' services advertised in the media - a neighbour of mine took that route and ended up hundreds of pounds short of the offered insurance payout.

Good luck in your search and hang on in there!

[littlegreenfairy]

Tbh you'll get bugger all (sorry to sound harsh). I ended up with 8k for an entire set of broken ribs, concussion, sprained ankel, cuts, bruises, whiplash, PTSD, and loss of memory.

Make sure you push for all the medical attention you get - keep pestering the doctors and go to them with everything - even if you think its minor (they need evidence and insurers will try and get out of everything). Get expert medical witnesses if you can (the insurance company can pay for it) and also make sure you get all the psychological help that you feel you need (or even not - things have a habit of coming back months later)

Keep your insurance company up to date all the time and keep pestering them - our case took 18months to sort out, so be patient.

Good luck with it and I hope you're all fit and happy again soon. Most importantly - take care of yourselves and each other.

[Birney29]

"T also make sure you get all the psychological help that you feel you need (or even not - things have a habit of coming back months later)"

Great idea! use up valuable medical resources, just to get compensation!!?

If you get involved in an accident, sure its terrible. It should not mean you automatically get 1000's.

especially if you lie!!

[ehyouwhat]

£2k-£3k seems to be the going rate for this kind of thing. £2k would be a minimum payout I would have thought, even just for whiplash (which is an unknown quantity really), given the current climate for compensation. Not that I think it's necessarily a wrong thing to do.

[apache]

Son is 30 months into a claim for whiplash, don't hold your breath, don't listen to people implying you are dishonest, keep all your receipts and be a pain

[Marshy]

Birney29 said:

Great idea! use up valuable medical resources, just to get compensation!!? If you get involved in an accident, sure its terrible. It should not mean you automatically get 1000's. especially if you lie!!

Did you read the list of LGF's injuries? That shit's no short-term walk in the park, commensurate compensation and councelling are both entirely appropriate IMHO.

I don't think anyone here's advocated lying or even exaggerating: that's the sort of insinuation you should retract if you're in any way decent.

[ehyouwhat]

Took about a year for my girlfriends claim to get through. Police (who we reported accident to) even told her to claim, and said she'd get about £2,500. The insurance company offered £1,800, £2,300 and then £2,600, which my girlfriend accepted. The whole process was actually less hassle than we had expected, especially as there was no damage to our car (we hit from behind at low speed). Having said that, we get the impression that our case was dealt with in an unusually efficient manner!

[Mr Whippy]

I've been waiting 2 years, and the other insurers are still taking the biscuit so my solicitors say anyhow. The other driver was 3rd party on a brand new bike, mid twenties, had already had a few more minor accidents that year.

So, wrote off my car, his bike disintigrated, I got a crushed foot and whiplash, and still having back trouble too, and the biker managed to get away with a broken arm/wrist and bad pelvic bruising. Lucky bugger!!!

But I'm guessing as he has basically cost the other insurer alot of money, they don't want to pay out much.


My brother was hit head on by an overtaker over a blind brow, wrote the car off, crushed his arm, leg cuts on his face, broken foot, no driving/walking for 3 months, right in final year of A-levels etc. He got £5k, so you DO have to be really shook up to get big payments. Mine is currents about 1/4 of that, but the solicitors are still fighting it out!

If the claims are not equal, divvy them out equally, who cares? It's only money. I'd still rather be a "crash virgin" than have £50,000 to be honest!

Dave

[Piglet]

Personal injury claims do and should take time. It's impossible at the outset to see how the injury will pan out. Is this something that will resove with some physio or is it something that the injured party is going to have to live with for life.

You'd be pretty narked if you accepted a payment 6 months into the situation on the basis that another 3 months of physio should sort you and it then turned out to not be resolved that easily.

[Mr Whippy]

Piglet said:

Personal injury claims do and should take time. It's impossible at the outset to see how the injury will pan out. Is this something that will resove with some physio or is it something that the injured party is going to have to live with for life. You'd be pretty narked if you accepted a payment 6 months into the situation on the basis that another 3 months of physio should sort you and it then turned out to not be resolved that easily.

Yup thats the worry. I was seen by a doctor 2 months after mine who said "3 months and you'll be fine", then 6 months later a physio said my neck needed work (vertebrae locking one way causing strain), and now visits to chairopractor/physio/spinal surgeon another 12 months later for the same kinda thing as my neck in my lower back, which incidentally was nothing at first, just a sharp twinge when twisting now and again, that gradually got worse to constant niggles 18 months later!

Alot of the problem is shocked muscles it seems. They stop working for a while, and your body learns to stop using them, and you alter your movement to subliminally compensate, then weeks or months later the strain caused by your compensatory muscle/movement patterns kicks in. Physio/chairopractor can help sort this quickly and effectively, but it's knowing *what* is wrong that can take it's time. I had 3 months of constant headaches and not much sleep visiting doctors etc, until my insurer finally sent me to a physio who sorted my neck in 4 visits, after which my neck got better within months with help from a chairopractor a bit more!

Peeved off and amazed all at the same time. Angry that I was never checked out properly, but the nature of these things is you have to wait for them to show. Doctors were useless when I said what happened, but fortunately my insurers sent me to specialists who fixed/diagnosed me which is good when you finally get appointments

Oddly though my brother never had anything like that, in a much worse crash. But he is very active all day long wheras I use a PC at a desk, so chances are his body self-mends over time, wheras a relatively inactive person with general exercise will not... and needs a helping hand/focussed exercises!

Dave

[Piglet]

Mr Whippy said:

Piglet said: stuff Oddly though my brother never had anything like that, in a much worse crash. But he is very active all day long wheras I use a PC at a desk, so chances are his body self-mends over time, wheras a relatively inactive person with general exercise will not... and needs a helping hand/focussed exercises! Dave

You make an interesting point. I had a neck problem last year (office/PC based occupation) - I had five months of physio which was helpful whilst I had the treatment but it recurred again as soon as the physio stopped.

I was always fairly sure that my sedentary lifestyle wasn't helping - I hadn't exercised seriously in 18 months having always been pretty active. I rejoined the gym, started doing Pilates and running again and my neck problem went away over night!!

Rest is not always a good thing!

[SpaceCowboy]

angie said:

Does anyone know what sort of compensation for whiplash, cuts and bruises, sprained ankles nothing major (we were lucky to get out, car was a right off, police etc could not believe anyone could have survived). My 2 daughters were in the rear one been offered double the amount of the other, I don't think this is right. My husband offered 2,000 for whiplash, crushed chest, bumps and bruises, distress etc. My injuries still ongoing so no offer made yet. My solicitor says offers are ok and advises me to accept. I'm not too sure. I'm just at a loss at moment as not had to deal with this before.

Hi, bearing in mind that your solicitor has probably trained for say 7 years + to be able to advise you in this matter, is there anything specific that makes you think that their advice could be incorrect or is it simply a gut feeling?

Unfortunately, everyone seems to know of someone these days who got £50,000 for a broken fingernail, which in turn means that an awful lot of people have an inflated sense of what their claim should be worth and often seem more willing to rely on the "advice" of someone in the pub rather than someone who's actually legally qualified and paid to represent them. I'm not saying that's the case in this instance.

Every solicitor has a duty to act in their clients' best interests, so I'd be surprised if yours was recommending acceptance of an offer unless they genuinely thought that it was appropriate to do so. Particularly when, if it all goes tits up, a client has the opportunity to pursue their solicitor for negligence.

There is no set tariff as such for "whiplash". Based on the Judicial Studies Board Guidelines, a Court could award anything from (approx) £150 upwards, depending on the nature and extent of the injury suffered.

Each individual claim is considered on its own merits and, I assume, the difference in terms of compensation offered for your daughters' claims will arise from the fact that their respective medical reports differ.

For example, one might have suffered whiplash, with a prognosis for recovery of 12 months. The other might also have suffered whiplash, but have a prognosis for recovery of 18 months and an increased susceptibility to the onset of cervical spondylosis. It would surely be unreasonable to expect that they should both receive matching offers, even though they have both suffered whiplash.

If your daughters are both under the age of 18, any settlement awards will need to be approved by the Court anyway and a Barrister's opinion should be obtained on an appropriate level of damages for the Court to consider. You can rest assured that if a Court does not consider the offers to be sufficient, it'll refuse to approve them, so increases will need to be made in any event.

If your daughters are over 18, they might wish to consider asking their solicitor to obtain a Barrister's opinion regardless, which will hopefully give them some piece of mind and confirm the position one way or the other.

Hope this helps.

>> Edited by SpaceCowboy on Thursday 2nd March 11:47

[tvrbob]

Compensation culture again. Before we know it our insurance policies will be astronomical. Where do you think thing the money comes from (rhetorical). It comes from me through bigger premiums and I didn't do anything wrong.

[ATG]

Hi Angie ... sorry to hear what you've been through. From every angle, it sounds like a bloody awful ordeal. What SpaceCowboy said makes a lot of sense to me. As I understand it, the main purpose of compensation payments is to reimburse you for financial loss, e.g. lost earnings and incurred medical expenses. The fincial "compensation" for pain and suffering itself is limited, I guess because there is no way of putting a monetary value on pain as you'll still be in pain whether you have 5p or £500 in the bank; money can't undo what has been done.

[Mr Whippy]

tvrbob said:

Compensation culture again. Before we know it our insurance policies will be astronomical. Where do you think thing the money comes from (rhetorical). It comes from me through bigger premiums and I didn't do anything wrong.

My claim includes £1000 for a free-lance artist to complete the work that I was doing. I was out of action for a day in the final stages of a major project £100k, and needed it to be completed. A freelancer with the skills had to be brought in at the last day or so to get the work done... I was peeved, but work lost out.

Claims are for uninsured losses. My claim will also be deducted of my physio costs, and covers all my transport costs, petrol for a friend to go out of his way to pick me up as I couldn't drive for a while, medication and other travel to physio's, as well as using holidays to go see them, etc etc...
There is more to the claim than pure greed. I'm £1000 down before I get anything!

Dave

[ehyouwhat]

I agree that a compensation culture exists in this country, and that this in turn leads to increased premiums etc, etc. However, I think that should I be involved in an accident that was someone elses fault and not mine , and the possibility of a monetary claim was available, then I would pursue it. I would be really selfish in such an instance and say "why not? Everybody else does".

Our premiums have increased so much anyway that a person claiming really has nothing to lose, providing they can live with the moral implications of claiming. And let's face it, one of us NOT claiming isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference overall. It would need EVERYONE to take the so-called 'moral highground' and refuse to put a claim in, and that just ain't gonna happen.

I don't believe in making things up in order to claim more money, but I do believe in claiming for what's available. My girlfriend, for example, she suffered a certain amount of genuine pain for a number of months after we were crashed into from behind. She had to miss several days of work, visit a Physio-trainer a fair few times, and deal with a police enquiry where the guilty party changed his story three times - each time needing my girlfriend to speak to the police again. And all for something that absolutely, positively WAS NOT my girlfriends fault in any way, shape or form. She was offered an opportunity to claim some money for this huge amount of hassle and unwanted pain, so why should she not take that chance. Her premiums have increased the same as everybody elses.

[tvrbob]

Non-profit compensation is fine and if that's what you are doing then I apologise. I am frustrated that this culture is being driven not by people who have suffered loss but by the lawyers that are making money by convincing people they should claim. I suggested that one of my analytical technicians go to her doctor when she became asthmatic. I wanted to have better knowledge so that I could evaluate whether she should avoid certain activities. Her doctor, at the end of the appointment, presented her with business card from compensation claims law firm. This culture is so endemic that even doctors are getting kick-backs for pointing people in the compensation direction.

[littlegreenfairy]

Birney29 said:

"T also make sure you get all the psychological help that you feel you need (or even not - things have a habit of coming back months later)" Great idea! use up valuable medical resources, just to get compensation!!? If you get involved in an accident, sure its terrible. It should not mean you automatically get 1000's. especially if you lie!!

Its not just to get compensation - unless you've been involved in a serious accident you will never know how completely life destroying it is. I suggest you read the posts properly before you attack people.

I didn't lie and got shafted - but I'd rather know that I got what I got honestly.

And FYI most medical bills are NOT covered by the NHS in these cases - they have to be paid for privately.

[polus]

littlegreenfairy said:

Birney29 said: "T also make sure you get all the psychological help that you feel you need (or even not - things have a habit of coming back months later)" Great idea! use up valuable medical resources, just to get compensation!!? If you get involved in an accident, sure its terrible. It should not mean you automatically get 1000's. especially if you lie!! Its not just to get compensation - unless you've been involved in a serious accident you will never know how completely life destroying it is. I suggest you read the posts properly before you attack people. I didn't lie and got shafted - but I'd rather know that I got what I got honestly. And FYI most medical bills are NOT covered by the NHS in these cases - they have to be paid for privately.

IMO the trouble is that some people are taking the piss and that dilutes how life affecting the genuine cases can be. I’ve heard too many people claim for whiplash when they didn’t have it becuase its "what you do" and knowing what it’s like when you do (having been in a fairly serious accident) is frankly irritating.

>> Edited by polus on Thursday 2nd March 18:33

[shnozz]

SpaceCowboy said:

[Unfortunately, everyone seems to know of someone these days who got £50,000 for a broken fingernail, which in turn means that an awful lot of people have an inflated sense of what their claim should be worth and often seem more willing to rely on the "advice" of someone in the pub rather than someone who's actually legally qualified and paid to represent them. I'm not saying that's the case in this instance.

ding.

I have acted for Claimants and Defendants in insurance law for 10 years now. The change in culture and "knowing someone down the pub" has changed dramatically in that time.

Spacecowboys advice is all spot on. No set figures and saying whiplash, cuts, etc etc means nothing at all. If you really want someone to give it a second opinion, the medical report would need to be read thoroughly, not a description from yourself. As spacecowboy describes, if your daughters are under 18, the award will need to be approved by the Court and this process involves getting a barrister to provide a written advice on how much each claim is worth and back up his advice using past case law. I have never in my career seen a child get under compensated as the Court are overly generous with kiddy awards.

>> Edited by shnozz on Thursday 2nd March 18:40