Personal injury claim - anyone done it ?

Your relative needs to contact a PI solicitor and start the process.  The solicitor will submit the claim on his behalf, it won't be small claim, it will be a multi track, large claim.  Then after a while he will hear from the insurance company and likely the panel solicitor representing the insurance company.  This is when it starts really and it could be months before it even get to this point to be honest.  The solicitors at these firms will have hundreds of cases on their plate, every response can take 2 weeks +, they will all be on a hourly basis rather than a fixed fee from the insurance company.


There are 2 kinds of damages.  General and Special Damages.

General Damages is pain and suffering - the actual injury
Special Damages is Financial Loss - employment, medical care

The actual payout for the pain and suffering would be dwarfed by the life time care if the injury is serious.  It depends on his profession, or age (potential loss of earnings) would scale and add up very quickly.  

Note that the time scale for this will take years, his medical history will have to be revealed to both sides, he will need to visit many experts to assess his injury.  Also, because these things takes ages, and if the case is a large enough number, there is a high chance he or she will be placed on surveillance, just to check he is not faking it.  So if he claims he has lost / limited use of his right arm...if they catch him going to Tesco carrying shopping, or putting something in the boot, it won't look good.  Even though he might do it in pain.  There is no way to tell on video.

Where is he based?  If he is in the midlands then Irwin Mitchell is a big firm who has a big PI department.

RaymondLin said:

Where is he based?  If he is in the midlands then Irwin Mitchell is a big firm who has a big PI department.

Yes midlands thanks

Several hundred of them.

RaymondLin said:

...... if the case is a large enough number, there is a high chance he or she will be placed on surveillance, just to check he is not faking it.  So if he claims he has lost / limited use of his right arm...if they catch him going to Tesco carrying shopping, or putting something in the boot, it won't look good.  Even though he might do it in pain.  There is no way to tell on video.

Took 3 years to resolve my son's claim when he was knocked over by an idiot driver pulling out of a petrol station 
He wasn't badly injured thankfully but he suffered a spinal injury (minor) and the usual cuts ,bruises .
It was a very clear cut case with CCTV on the forecourt ,numerous witnesses , Police etc but the driver still claimed that he ran in front of the car ......It didn't really take long to evaluate the quantum of the damages after a year of physio but the investigation of the circumstances took 18 months and that was the most clear cut thing of all .That driver admitted liability at the scene and then changed his mind 2 months later . I'm convinced that the insurers /adjusters encouraged him to dispute liability so I think a lot depends on the honesty of the driver in the first place although in reality I don't see why that has any bearing on the value of damages.

BillDL said:

RaymondLin said:

...... if the case is a large enough number, there is a high chance he or she will be placed on surveillance, just to check he is not faking it.  So if he claims he has lost / limited use of his right arm...if they catch him going to Tesco carrying shopping, or putting something in the boot, it won't look good.  Even though he might do it in pain.  There is no way to tell on video.

Agreed.  I did this kind of investigation for a couple of years on behalf of insurance companies, employers and lawyers.  When it's insurance companies and it's a large claim they often agree an investigative fee based on a percentage of the claim amount (or the amount they saved if a reduced payout is made) if it can be proven that the claimant is "at it" and they refuse to pay out.  There can therefore be a lot of incentive to catch the claimant out and for big claims an investigation company is often willing to do round the clock surveillance working 12 hour shifts.  The methods can be very sneaky and covert.

If the injured person's employers pay him while he is off and unable to work, then the employer will most likely claw back money from the claim when it is paid out.  The same may be done by social security for benefit payments made in the event that the person's employees do not pay him or only pay him for some of his absence.

With cameras much smaller and discrete now and phone cameras being so good.  It is very hard to tell.  They used to have to use big cameras.  Now anything goes and it doesn't need to be 4k 120fps, they just have to show the claimant doing something with that they claim have difficulty doing.

There are certain triggers, like if they set up an appointment for the claimant to visit an expert, so they know he has to leaver the house.  And if the injury is mobility related then they have a time and place where they can monitor.  

The social media accounts will also be monitored, any holiday photos, any posts etc.  Problem with your right hand? and you post a photo holding a beer during Christmas dinner? Got you.  There is an entire department dedicated for social media monitoring.

In terms of claims, you can claim for pretty much anything reasonable.  If you have a garden, you can claim for a gardener (at a reasonable rate).  If you have a dog, you can even claim for a dog walker if your mobility is impaired.  Loss of earnings is of course a standard thing to claim for.  If you play the guitar and now can't play, you can claim for loss of enjoyment for the guitar too.

However, I wouldn't want to be that injured to get those kind of money.  They are life changing money because their quality of life has changed for the worse.  Most of it would go towards cost of care, nurse visits, house adaptation etc