If you were injured because another party failed to follow their legal obligations to protect your health and safety, an online compensation calculator can help give you a better idea of what your claim may cover. We have created a guide to show you how to use our compensation calculator.
In this guide, we outline the steps to take when using our compensation calculator. We explain what information the calculator needs, such as what type of claim you are seeking to make and how your injury has impacted you.
Additionally, we look at the different scenarios you could claim for and explain factors that impact the accuracy of compensation calculations. Furthermore, we explain what liability is and how you can check whether you have a valid compensation claim.
Finally, we describe the services that our panel of solicitors provide to eligible claimants on a No Win No Fee basis. You can reach out to an advisor at any time to enquire about your eligibility. They can assess your situation and let you know whether our panel can take your case forward:
- Call us on 0800 408 7826
- Log an online enquiry
- Use the live chat feature on this webpage
Select A Section
- How To Use Our Compensation Calculator
- What Kinds Of Claims Can I Use This Calculator For?
- How Accurate Are The Results?
- How Liability Can Affect Your Claim Results
- What Should I Do If I Think I’m Eligible To Make A Claim
- How Our Panel Of Solicitors Can Help
- More Information
How To Use Our Compensation Calculator
In this section, we break down the various steps you need to take and the information that is required to use a claim calculator. Keep reading to find out how to use our compensation calculator.
Step 1 – Select Where The Incident Happened
Firstly, you will need to select where your incident happened. The options listed are ‘work accident/illness,’ ‘road accident,’ ‘public place accident,’ ‘medical negligence,’ or ‘other.’
Step 2 – Determine If You Have An Injury Or Condition
This next tab asks about the type of injury you have suffered, with the options being ‘physical injury’ and ‘illness or health condition.’ If you’re unsure whether you suffered from an injury or illness/condition, you can continue reading to find out the different options for these categories.
Step 3 – Providing More Specific Information
If you select physical injury, the next page will ask you to specify whether the injury affected your ‘arm, hand or wrist,’ ‘chest or back,’ ‘head or face,’ ‘hip, leg or foot,’ ‘neck or shoulder,’ or involved ‘sexual or physical abuse.’
Should you select that you have experienced an illness or health condition, the options to choose from will include ‘paralysis or brain damage’ and ‘PTSD or psychiatric damage.’
Underneath the different options, there is also a box that allows you to search for your specific injury. The following sub-category page will ask you to specify further. For example, if you selected ‘arm, hand or wrist,’ you might then pick ‘hand.’
Step 4 – Gauge How Severe Your Injury Or Condition Is
You will then be asked about the severity and specific details about the type of injury sustained. For example, imagine that you have stated that your injury relates to your arm. The calculator will then ask you to confirm whether you suffered an amputation of one or more arms or experienced a fracture of the bones in your forearm.
This helps us to assess general damages, which refers to the compensation that covers the pain and suffering you experienced due to an injury.
Step 5 – Add Other Injuries Or Illnesses
You will also have an option to specify if you have more than one injury due to the incident. In cases where a claimant has multiple injuries, each one can be assessed as part of the claim. For example, if your accident resulted in a back injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), you should include both of these in your answers.
The recovery process when someone has suffered multiple injuries can be more complex, and legal professionals take this into account when assessing claims.
Step 6 – Calculate Any Loss Of Earnings
You will then be asked whether you have suffered from a loss of earnings, which refers to any income lost due to taking time off to recover from your injuries. You could also include lost overtime, commission, and bonuses. Furthermore, you may be eligible to claim future lost earnings if the effects of your injury persist.
This type of compensation is referred to as special damages. These damages aim to help you recover the financial losses that you have incurred due to your injury. The compensation calculator will also ask you about other costs you may be eligible to claim, which include:
- Care Costs: Can cover support from a family member.
- Medical Expenses: This category can include payments for prescriptions.
- Travel Expenses: Costs incurred when travelling to and from medical appointments.
- Repair Costs: For instance, to repair damage to your vehicle following a road traffic accident.
- Other Costs: This gives you the option to include anything else that you would like us to consider for your claim.
Step 7 – Make Sure You’re Eligible To Claim
The next question assesses whether you are eligible to claim. You will need to state who was responsible for your accident: ‘someone else,’ ‘you,’ ‘both were partly at fault,’ or ‘not sure.’
In order to make a claim, you must be able to prove that another person’s negligent actions caused your accident. If you are solely to blame for the incident, you would not be eligible to claim. However, if you are partially at fault for the accident, you may still be able to claim compensation.
In a later section, we provide further details on claims where the claimant is partially responsible. Keep reading our guide on how to use our compensation calculator as we discuss the final step you’ll take.
Step 8 – Final Details
Lastly, you will be asked for additional details about yourself and the nature of the claim. You will need to state whether you were older or younger than 18 at the time of the incident, as the process of claiming compensation is different for minors.
Next, you’ll confirm whether the incident occurred within the last three years. Under the Limitation Act 1980, you generally have to start a claim within three years from the date of injury or the date that you became aware another party failed to meet the laws in place to protect you.
There are some exceptions to the time limit, and you can reach out to our team of advisors to discuss the matter further. They can examine the details of your claim and let you know whether you are eligible to proceed.
What Kinds Of Claims Can I Use This Calculator For?
In order to have a valid claim, you must be able to show that:
- Another party owed you a duty of care.
- They failed to fulfil their duty.
- Their failure resulted in you suffering an injury.
The types of claims we have included in our compensation calculator are all scenarios where you are owed a duty of care. Keep reading to learn more about what a duty of care is and how it can apply to different claims.
Personal Injury Claims
Personal injury cases involve accidents in the workplace, on the road, and in public spaces. To understand how a duty of care works for each, let’s first take a look at the relevant laws:
- Workplace: An employer may be at fault if they fail to take practical steps to protect the health and safety of their staff. This legal obligation is set out by the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
- Road Traffic: Everyone has a shared responsibility to use roads in a manner that prevents injury to each other and themselves. To fulfil their duty of care, they must comply with the rules and laws outlined by the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code.
- Public Space: In public liability claims, occupiers must take practical measures to keep visitors to their premises reasonably safe under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957.
Next, we can see how failing to meet those legal obligations could result in you being eligible to claim personal injury compensation:
- Workplace: An employer instructs you to carry a heavy load without giving you adequate training, resulting in a manual handling injury.
- Road Traffic: You suffer a serious head injury due to a car accident involving a collision with a speeding drink driver.
- Public Space: A café fails to mark a wet floor with warning signs, leading you to injure your back due to a slip and fall.
Medical Negligence Claims
Finally, the compensation calculator also covers medical negligence claims. All healthcare providers and medical professionals are expected to deliver a level of care to patients that meets certain minimum standards. In that context, someone might not meet their duty of care in scenarios such as:
- You inform your doctor about all your symptoms, which are commonly associated with lung cancer. However, the inexperienced GP assumes you have bronchitis and fails to refer you for additional tests.
- A surgical team doesn’t follow appropriate pre-operative hygiene procedures. Consequently, you develop a serious infection because of an unsterilised instrument.
- A doctor fails to ensure that the placenta does not remain inside your uterus, causing you to suffer from a retained placenta after giving birth.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that all treatments and surgery come with some degree of risk. You might still suffer from those risks even when someone meets the standards expected of them, meaning not every medical issue will be the result of negligence.
How Accurate Are The Results?
Our online compensation calculator uses information sourced from the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). Legal professionals sometimes refer to this document to help them provide clients with a compensation estimate for general damages. Like the JCG itself, our compensation calculator is strictly intended to be a guide and does not factor in all the losses you might be eligible to claim for.
Given that, we recommend that you contact our team of advisors to discuss your case after reading our guide on how to use our compensation calculator. They can consider the relevant factors affecting your claim and give you a better idea of what could be included in a potential settlement.
How Liability Can Affect Your Claim Results
Liability refers to the responsibility of a party or multiple parties for an accident. Where the defending party admits liability from the start, it can make it a much quicker process to claim.
However, in some cases, the claimant may have partly contributed to the accident. Legally, this is referred to as split liability. For example, imagine that you and another driver crash your cars after both reversing out of your driveways without paying attention to the road.
In such a scenario, the level of compensation you receive will reflect the extent of your responsibility for the crash. If the compensation is calculated as £50,000 and it is determined that you are 50% responsible for the accident, you would receive 50% of the compensation figure (£25,000).
Furthermore, a claim can be impacted by contributory negligence. It is similar to split liability but occurs when someone’s actions have contributed to their injuries, such as by not wearing a seatbelt during a car crash.
What Should I Do If I Think I’m Eligible To Make A Claim?
If you think you are eligible to claim compensation, you can contact our team of advisors for a no-strings-attached consultation. They can confirm whether or not you meet the eligibility criteria for starting a claim and outline the different factors that could influence the potential compensation amount you might receive.
They also connect eligible claimants with solicitors from our experienced panel. In the next section, we explain the services on offer to help take a claim forward.
How Our Panel Of Solicitors Can Help
Our panel of solicitors draw on their years of experience in the legal field to gain compensation for their clients. If you seek legal representation from our panel, you could benefit from the excellent services they offer for those who pursue compensation. These include:
- Collecting relevant evidence to strengthen your case for compensation.
- Outlining key legal definitions and explaining anything you are unsure of.
- Negotiating the case on your behalf to help you settle outside of court and maximise your final compensation.
- Seeking advice from medical experts to assess your injuries and the circumstances that caused them.
Additionally, they offer their legal representation on a No Win No Fee basis. A Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) works in this way, meaning you do not have to pay for your solicitor’s work:
- Before the claim starts.
- While the claim proceeds.
- If you do not receive a compensation award.
In the event that you do gain compensation, you will pay a success fee. This fee is a percentage of the compensation that you give to your solicitor for their work on a successful claim. Rest assured, there is a legal cap in place which guarantees that the majority of the compensation owed stays with you.
If you have any queries about the benefits of working with a No Win No Fee solicitor from our panel, please contact our helpful team of advisors. You could find yourself one step closer towards gaining your rightful compensation and recovering the expenses you incurred due to your injury:
- Call us on 0800 408 7826
- Log an online enquiry
- Use the live chat feature on this webpage
More Information
You can read our other guides below:
- Visit our guide on dental negligence claims.
- Find out how to sue the council.
- Learn about claiming for a factory accident.
Some external resources:
- Injury statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which is the body responsible for regulating health and safety policies in the workplace.
- Government guidance on claiming Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).
- NHS guidance on first aid.
Thank you for taking the time to read this guide on how to use our compensation calculator.