Serious Injury Claims

If we take on your case, we’ll work with an independent medical specialist to measure the full impact of your injury.

This will help us to determine the rehabilitation needed to support you, and how much compensation you’re entitled to.

We’ll also carry out a thorough investigation to determine who is responsible for your injuries.

Since each serious injury case is unique, we can’t say for sure exactly how long this will take.

But rest assured, we’ll be at your side every step of the way.

Claims can often be funded through a No Win, No Fee agreement - ask us for details.

If the accident is disputed and the person you blame for your injuries doesn’t accept full responsibility, or blames you in part, it can take anything from 6-12 months to resolve this issue.
The delay is usually because other persons and agencies may be involved in investigating the accident, such as the police.

So in the case of, for instance, with road traffic accidents, we have to wait for their full report into the accident, so we can read witness statements and hear the other person’s account if they were interviewed by police.

In accidents at work, we may need to receive the accident report book and, again, statements from witnesses or the disclosure of the company’s records dealing with health and safety. We may also require a report from the Health and Safety Executive if they’ve been involved in reviewing what happened.

You may resolve the issue of who is responsible either by agreement or after a Trial before a Court, but if the Court is involved, your case may last longer than 12 months from start to finish.
Once the insurer of the person who we blame for the accident has agreed responsibility, we need to decide what amount of compensation should be awarded.

This may take another 12 -18 months depending on what the expert doctors have to say. Before making a final decision as to how much compensation should be paid, healthcare experts may want to wait and see how the injury develops.

They may also need to consider the future extent of treatment, rehabilitation, care and support a person may need, so that we can calculate the costs of this over a lifetime. This may result in the time for the case to be resolved entirely to be over 18 months from resolving the cause of the accident and the responsibility for that accident.

So in total, a serious injury case may usually take anywhere from 2-3 years to be completed.

At Simpson Millar, our Serious Injury Solicitors may be able to deal with your case on a No Win, No Fee basis. We will come and visit you in hospital or at your home (in England or Wales) at no cost to you and if you agree to let us take on your case, we will act on this basis.

It means that if we were to win your case, the other party’s insurers would pay for not only whatever compensation you may be entitled to, but also all of the legal costs and expenses that may have been charged to you.

Simpson Millar will guarantee that whatever compensation you recover through the claim will be ring-fenced and you will take the total amount - i.e. 100 % of whatever you’re entitled to in compensation, either ordered by a Court or following any agreement with the insurer to settle your claim.

If the case looks likely to take several years to resolve, we can secure for you what’s known as an interim payment, where some money is released up front by the other party’s insurer to provide financial help.

This will usually be part of what you’ll get at the end of the case to help pay for your monthly outgoings if you can’t work. Alternatively, it can help you pay for any private treatment if you need more surgery, rehabilitation, physiotherapy and/or the setting up of a care package.

An interim payment may also help pay for new accommodation, either by way of extra money for the rental of ground floor accommodation if it’s needed, or the provision of money to pay for a new home pending the conclusion to the case.
If the other party’s insurer disputes who was responsible for the accident and your injuries, then this award of an interim payment may only be possible once those issues are resolved, so it may not be possible to get this money until that process has been resolved.

Sometimes, the insurer won’t want to make any such payment and in those circumstances, we’d make an application to the Court and ask the Judge to order them to pay. We often have to make such an application and have an excellent track record of forcing the insurer to pay often very close to the date that’s been set for the hearing of the application.

There are various elements of any claim that can be made on your behalf. But the basic principle is that you’re entitled to be compensated so as to put you back in the position you’d be in if the accident hadn’t happened.

This will mean that if you’re unable to work again, you’ll be entitled to claim your loss of earnings for your working career.

If you need treatment, therapy or rehabilitation to recover from your injuries, you’ll be entitled to the reasonable cost of this being provided privately for however long it’s required, based on medical expert opinion of the injury and its effect.

If you or a loved one needs help to deal with everyday tasks and the injury has affected your mobility, then the reasonable private cost of a carer or support worker will be recoverable, as will any aids, appliances, equipment or even alterations to your home or the provision of ground floor accommodation.

The cost of a support worker, sometimes called a buddy or enabler, can also be claimed to help a person to regain the quality of life they had before the accident. In addition, you can claim for the cost of a private healthcare professional who can organise and manage things on the claimant’s behalf, as well as the cost of a privately funded financial deputy should the injured person have problems managing a large settlement of compensation at the end of the case.

95% of the serious injury cases we deal with settle before ever going to Trial. The first and most important aspect of any injury case therefore is to gather all of the evidence and experts’ reports on what’s happened to convince the insurer of the party who is to blame to pay the right level of compensation. Only in a very small number of cases is that not possible and we have to proceed to a Trial before a Judge.

As Serious Injury Solicitors, we’ll assist you every step of the way, from offering initial legal advice and gathering evidence on the cause of the accident, to analysing the effects of the injury and instructing experts and barristers who can assist with the case. We can then either reach a settlement with the insurer of the other party, or support you if your case goes to Court.