This guide covers everything you need to know about personal injury claims, including who is eligible to seek compensation and the steps involved in the claims process.
We discuss what your award could consist of (should your claim prove successful) and whether you need to pay tax on your payout. In addition to this, we offer helpful guidance on time limits and the costs involved in starting a compensation claim against a negligent third party.
The last part of our guide examines the advantages of working with a personal injury solicitor from our panel. They offer a type of No Win No Fee agreement which means if eligible, you could access excellent legal representation without the obstacle of upfront or ongoing solicitor fees.
Read further to discover more, or discuss your personal injury claim right now. One of our team members can listen to the circumstances of your injury and advise on whether you have a feasible claim as well as how much compensation you might be eligible for. For your free, no-obligation consultation:
- Call us on 0800 408 7826 to discuss potential injury compensation.
- Complete our online form to contact us.
- Talk to us via our online chat facility in the corner of this screen.
Jump To A Section Of Our Personal Injury Claims Guide
- Am I Eligible To Make A Personal Injury Claim?
- How Much Compensation You Could Claim
- Do You Have To Pay Tax On Compensation?
- How To Claim Personal Injury Compensation
- Choosing A Solicitor For Your Claim
- Further Information
Am I Eligible To Make A Personal Injury Claim?
Eligibility to start a personal injury claim for compensation rests upon meeting three criteria:
- Did a third party owe you a duty of care?
- Did they breach this duty?
- Did this directly result in your injuries?
All three points need to apply to move forward with a personal injury claim. A duty of care is a legal obligation that is placed on individuals or organisations to ensure that they take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable injuries or harm.
Next, we look at three areas where duties of care might be breached in a way that causes personal injury:
Accidents At Work
In the workplace, employers are bound by the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSASAW) to take reasonably practicable steps to protect their workers from harm while they are doing their jobs. Failure to protect them might be grounds to seek damages if it causes the employee physical or psychological injury.
For example, if you are required to use a table saw, you should have sufficient training to do so. Additionally, you should also be provided with any personal protective equipment (PPE) required to carry out this role. Failure to do so could result in injuries, such as finger amputations if your training is inadequate or eye injuries if you aren’t provided with goggles.
Road Traffic Accidents
On the roads, a duty of care applies to all road users. They must comply with rules in the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code to avoid causing injury or damage to themselves and others whilst driving. This is the duty of care anyone using the roads owes to everyone else on them. If you sustain an injury because of a breach of duty, you could be eligible to make a road traffic accident claim against the liable driver.
For example, if a driver fails to stop at a pedestrian crossing, you could be hit by a car and sustain multiple injuries, including broken bones and brain damage.
Public Liability
In public places, the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 requires the party in control of areas accessible to the public to implement the necessary steps to maintain a reasonable level of safety for lawful visitors. Again, a failure to protect health and safety on their premises can be grounds for a personal injury claim if a member of the public is hurt.
For example, the local authority failed to make a swing set safe despite knowing it was broken. Your child suffered an injury when trying to use it. You could make a public liability claim on behalf of your child by acting as their litigation friend (more on this later).
If you need any more information about personal injury claims or if you would like to discuss the incident that caused you harm, please get in touch.
How Much Compensation You Could Claim
When personal injury claims are successful, awards could consist of up to two heads (parts of claim):
- General damages can be awarded to reflect the pain and suffering the person experienced.
- Special damages can reimburse the claimant for the financial losses they suffered due to their injuries.
What You Can Include
Under special damages, you can include a claim for loss or expense created by your injuries, but you will need proof. Some examples:
- Wage slips that show lost earnings.
- Medical bills for private treatments.
- Receipts for care provided by other people.
- Invoices that prove the cost of adaptations to your home or vehicle to accommodate a permanent disability.
- Evidence of extra childcare expense.
- Proof of travel expenditure to essential appointments.
Importantly, special damages can only be part of a claim that includes general damages. Any financial harm must stem directly from physical and/or psychological injury.
Other amounts could be eligible for inclusion under special damages, so please contact our advisors for personalised guidance.
Using Our Compensation Calculator
You may have accessed our compensation calculator for an estimate of how much compensation you could be awarded. The figures used in our calculator are from the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This is a document that provides those responsible for calculating compensation with guideline figures for each injury. Our calculator can also estimate special damages (as discussed above).
Below is a table made up of excerpts from the JCG. This publication is often used by those involved to apply monetary amounts for general damages. This head of loss reflects physical pain, psychological damage and negative impact on the person’s quality of life.
The amounts are not guaranteed as every personal injury claim will have unique factors. Also, our example table below includes a top-line amount that is not from the JCG:
Compensation Award Bracket Guidelines
| INJURY TYPE | HOW SEVERE? | GUIDELINE AWARD AMOUNTS | NOTES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple forms of injury and special damages award. | Severe | Up to £1 million plus. | Awards this large reflect more than one serious or severe injury and the special damages award made to cover care costs, lost earnings and medical bills. |
| Head/Brain | (a) Very Severe | £344,150 going up to £493,000 | Cases of permanent disability that requires a level of constant professional attention from nursing staff. |
| (d) Less Severe | £18,700 going up to £52,550 | Despite initially severe problems the person makes a reasonable recovery with perhaps some persisting issues with concentration, memory and mood. | |
| Leg | (b) Severe | £117,460 going up to £165,860 | Injuries almost as significant as an amputation with degloving and shortening of the leg or cases of unhealed fracture. |
| Neck | (a) Severe (ii) | £80,240 going up to £159,770 | Fractures and cervical spine disc damage that create a permanent loss of movement or function in the neck. |
| General Psychiatric Damage | (a) Severe | £66,920 going up to £141,240 | The person experiences a permanent mental health trauma that impacts all areas of their life. |
| Chest | (b) Serious | £80,240 going up to £122,850 | A traumatic injury to the chest area (lungs and heart) that reduces life expectancy, reduces function and leaves permanent disability. |
| Knee | (a) Severe (ii) | £63,610 going up to £85,100 | The type of fractures in the leg that carry on into the knee joint causing constant pain and immobility issues. |
| Arm | (b) Injuries that result in substantial and permanent disability. | £47,810 going up to £73,050 | Fractures in one (or both) firearms that leave significant residual disability, either functional or cosmetic. |
| Hand | (f) Severe finger fracture | Up to £44,840 | Cases bad enough to require partial amputations, leaving the hand deformed and with less sensation. |
If you would like help using our compensation calculator or if you would like a free claim valuation, please get in touch.
Do You Have To Pay Tax On Compensation?
Generally, when you are awarded a settlement following a successful claim, your payout will include the compensation plus any interest. You won’t be asked to pay tax on the compensation, nor will you pay tax on the interest accumulated between the filing of the claim and the date of judgment. However, you will need to declare any interest that accumulated between the date of judgment and the day you actually received your settlement on a tax return. There might be tax on this sum.
Additionally, if you decide to invest your compensation, such as in a savings account, you will need to fill out a tax return that declares any interest earned from this. From here, you might have to pay tax.
If you have any questions about taxes for settlements for personal injury claims, speak to a member of our advisory team.
How To Claim Personal Injury Compensation
After establishing that you are eligible to start a claim, the next step is to assemble evidence. It’s important to gather as much proof as possible that a third party breached their duty of care to you and this caused you physical, emotional and/or financial harm. Therefore, these types of evidence can help:
- CCTV of the accident.
- Contact information of any eyewitnesses willing to provide a statement later on.
- Photos of the injuries (and whatever caused the accident).
- Medical documentation that details the level of injury, your treatment and future prognosis.
- A copy of any accident book kept on the premises.
Should you decide to appoint a personal injury solicitor, they can comb through this evidence and use it to help calculate the maximum compensation owed to you. To see how they might help you, call our friendly advisors on the number above.
Time Limits
The Limitation Act 1980 sets out a three-year time limit in which to make a personal injury claim. This varies for certain groups:
- Minors cannot start a personal injury claim themselves. If a claim is not made for them by an adult acting in the role of litigation friend, the minor has three years to start an independent action from the date they turn 18.
- Those lacking the mental capacity to claim can also use a litigation friend. Alternatively, an independent claim is given a three-year time limit should mental capacity return. This starts from the date of recovery.
To learn more about the time limits for personal injury claims and find out if you are still within the limitation period to start one, speak to a member of our advisory team today.
How Long It Can Take To See A Payout
The speed at which compensation awards are made depends on various factors:
- The complexity of the personal injury claim.
- The predicted recovery period and treatment.
- Whether the other side disputes liability or offers insufficient settlement amounts.
- The overall workload of the courts.
Personal injury claims also have to follow certain steps before going to court called the Pre-Action Protocols. These are complex and it can be a huge advantage to appoint a solicitor to handle them. Speak to our team to learn more.
How Much Does It Cost To Claim?
The solicitors on our panel offer eligible claimants a way to access excellent legal services without adding to their financial burden. To do this, a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) is often suggested which is a type of No Win No Fee contract. Under a CFA, you can expect the following:
- No expectation to pay upfront solicitors fees to commence work.
- No legal fees for your personal injury lawyer going forward.
- No fees owed for finished work on the claim if it doesn’t succeed.
- A small percentage deduction takes place from the compensation if you win your claim. This is a legally restricted ‘success fee’ which means you can work with an expert personal injury solicitor and keep virtually all of the compensation you’re awarded.
Choosing A Solicitor For Your Claim
The solicitors on our panel offer an outstanding array of excellent benefits to the claimants they represent. If your case is eligible and you wish to go ahead, you can expect the following:
- Hands-on support with gathering evidence and taking statements.
- A more precise calculation of the damages owed.
- Prompt handling of all court proceedings, correspondence and the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims.
- Vigorous arguing for the maximum compensation for your circumstances.
- Professional representation of your claim at all times.
- Support at every step of the claims process, with legal jargon explained and regular updates on the status of your case.
Interested? To learn more about your eligibility to start a personal injury compensation claim this way, take the first step of speaking to our advisors. If they determine that your claim has a good chance of success, they can connect you to a personal injury specialist solicitor from our panel today:
- Ring us 0800 408 7826.
- Complete our online form to contact us.
- Talk to us via our online chat facility at the corner of this screen to see how personal injury lawyers can help you.
Further Information
As well as this information about personal injury claims, these other articles offer further reading:
- This guide looks at car accident compensation claims.
- Here, we discuss compensation for carbon monoxide poisoning claims.
- Also, you’ll find information on suing the council for personal injury.
Some external help:
- Read some information about claiming Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) from the government.
- You can check your symptoms with the NHS here.
- Lastly, here is advice on when to call 999.
To close, thank you for reading our personal injury claims guide. We invite you to contact us with any other issues or questions through the contact options above.