The number of accident injury compensation claim settlements increases year on year however there is always a hidden set of statistics – that of incidents and injuries that have not been reported often due to the general public being unaware of their legal rights. Each case is unique and sometimes it is your fault, or partly your fault and sometimes not. Whatever the case you need to act to protect your legal rights by taking expert advice from accident injury compensation solicitors.
Most specialist accident injury compensation solicitors will not charge you for their work and will pay you 100% of the compensation that you win. Accident injury compensation claims are generally guaranteed to be risk free and you do not usually have to pay any expenses as the claim continues. Win or lose there is often no charge.
An accident injury compensation claim can be started at any time within three years of the incident giving rise to the injury. This means that if you had an accident that caused you some trouble sometime in the last three years, you are still legally entitled to claim compensation for the injury. Once the three-year period has passed the right to claim compensation may have been lost forever however there are some exceptions including children, that is, those under the age of eighteen years, the mentally disabled and injuries that do not show themselves until sometime after the accident.
The United Kingdom is a great place to live – but not every local council makes an acceptable pavement or road and not every company takes enough care to ensure their premises are safe and not every driver is competent! If you are hurt in an incident that is not your fault, then you will usually be entitled to make an accident insurance claim. Some people do not understand the potential long-term problems associated with injuries resulting from accidents. Sometimes just the loss of earnings due to being off work is enough to set off a chain of events that can lead to serious financial problems. In other situations, more serious problems arise immediately in the form of disability or pain and suffering. In these cases, an accident insurance claim can be made to compensate for losses including pain and suffering. The law is in place to help protect your rights and the courts will enforce those rights if they are infringed. All this means that if you suffer pain or loss accident injury compensation solicitors are here to help compensate you for it. You can make an accident insurance claim for:
work accidents
accidents in private or public places
slips or trips
motor accidents
If you can answer yes to the following questions you probably have a viable accident insurance claim :-
Are you living in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
Have you suffered an injury or accident in the last three years?
Was the accident or injury someone else’s fault?
There has been substantial growth over recent years in regards to the finance of accident insurance compensation claim settlements by the use of after the event insurance (ATE) and before the event insurance (BTE) and other similar financial arrangements that provide litigation funding on a no win no fee basis :-
Before the event insurance usually takes the form of an annual policy that is taken out through a broker and provides cover for taking or defending an accident insurance claim in the civil courts. Cover on a BTE basis is often included in a household contents policy and would normally be used for taking legal action to claim compensation for personal injury or defective goods.
After the event insurance is intended to protect a claimant in a legal action, most often an accident insurance claim for personal injury, from having to personally pay the other sides legal costs in the event that a case is lost and costs are awarded against the claimant. In most cases an ATE policy is also tied in with a litigation funding arrangement and covers the legal costs incurred by the claimant in taking the action.
Both ATE and BTE serve a similar purpose which is to provide financial coverage and protection to the parties involved in court litigation. This enables the claimant to file an accident insurance claim for compensation without being personally exposed to the risk of unacceptable financial burden if the claim is lost.
Both BTE and ATE are insurance products. BTE has a mass market potential and is often included in another insurance policy such as a household policy or a motor insurance policy at no extra cost or can be bought as an add on for as little as £10 per annum. ATE on the other hand is only obtained in anticipation of legal proceedings and each case is individually considered by an underwriter who considers the premium on a risk assessment basis. A straight forward road traffic accident claim may only cost a few hundred pounds to insure but a high-risk medical negligence action can cost tens of thousands of pounds with a rough guide that the insurance in these high-risk areas can cost as much as 25% of the anticipated value of the claim.
