(NOTE: This post contains a screencast video, below, with a walk-through of how best to use the Law Society of Scotland's "Find a Solicitor" Online Tool to locate a specialist personal injury solicitor who is local to you). You don’t have to use the solicitors your insurers may tell you to use for your personal injury claim. We recommend you to get help from a solicitor who meets two main criteria: They should be local, and they should be specialised. 1. Local solicitor We recommend you to engage the services of a local solicitor, if possible. What do we mean by local? Ideally, a solicitor who is local to you and local to the location of the accident. Even getting a solicitor who is local in only one of these two ways is probably better than a solicitor who is neither close to you nor the place where the accident happened. 2. Specialist solicitor These days, all solicitors are specialists to some extent. Personal injury law is a complex area and you need Continue Reading
Why a personal injury element is essential to a no win-no fee claim
Or, to put it another way, why don’t pure property damage claims work no win no fee? Dealing with motor insurers can be a frustrating process. This article was prompted by a question via the Grigor & Young website. The person making the enquiry said of their dealings with the third party insurers: It is an ‘online’ process and one is left for long periods of time on the telephone (twice my phone has run out of power from being fully charged) while trying to get a response. The enquirer had been involved in a road traffic accident that was not their fault. Their car was damaged and needed repairs. The car belonged to one of their parents. They were insured to drive the parent’s car through their comprehensive insurance on their own car. Ordinarily, in a “comprehensive” scenario, you may well choose to claim under your own policy (even if the accident was not your fault) because you have a contract with your insurers. You have more control. You have more clout if Continue Reading
9 Questions to ask your Legal Expenses Insurer if you want your own solicitor to handle your personal injury claim
In other articles, we have discussed how legal expenses insurance can help minimise the cost risk to you if you need to make a personal injury claim for compensation. The term “legal expenses insurance” can include both before-the-event (BTE) insurance and after-the-event (ATE) insurance. With ATE insurance, the insurance policy is taken out after the accident in order to cover the risk of having to pay the opponent’s legal costs (for example, if you raise a court action but the claim fails and you lose). BTE insurance covers against future legal costs but was in place before the event which gave rise to the claim, such as the accident which has caused the personal injury for which you need to claim compensation. BTE insurance generally limits your freedom to choose your own legal representative because claimants are directed to use firms of solicitors which are on the BTE insurer’s approved panel. Panel firms may be located a considerable distance from your home, especially Continue Reading
Why you should always make use of insurance, if you have it
We criticise insurance companies on this blog quite often. Of course, insurance companies are frequently critical of solicitors who help people to make personal injury claims. They are also critical of claimants themselves. As well as people with possible personal injury compensation claims, we get a lot of enquiries from people who are worried that some sort of compensation claim might be made against them. If they have insurance cover, they are not sure if they should use it. If you have insurance that will help you defend a claim against you for personal injury (or property damage), you should make use of it. Here are a couple of very recent examples. The first scenario is a road traffic accident. Of course, in theory, it is compulsory to have motor insurance to cover you against the risk of liability to a 3rd party. In this case, the person making the enquiry to us had been driving at night in a suburban area. There was street lighting. The car in front was Continue Reading
4 ways to avoid problems with your whiplash injury claim (that your solicitor can’t really tell you about)
Whiplash injuries are problematic because they are soft tissue injuries. They cannot be identified or confirmed on any form of medical scan. They can be difficult to diagnose. Because of this, they are controversial injuries. They can be exaggerated. It is said that they can even be faked. In May 2018, the insurer Aviva reported that the value and volume of fraudulent claims detected by them had increased for the second consecutive year. Aviva said it now rejected around one in eight whiplash claims because they were suspect or considered to be fraudulent. Putting the case for personal injury victims, on the other hand, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) pointed out that on the Association of British Insurers' own figures, only 0.17% of all motor claims are proven to be fraudulent. Motor claims include property claims due to fire, theft and damage, as well as personal injury. In other words, not all motor claims involve a personal injury element, so only a Continue Reading
Can you make a personal injury claim if you definitely don’t want to go to court?
Tilley hats might be the best in the world. They’ve been called “legendary” and “iconic”. Tilley hats float and, if lost or stolen, can be replaced for half their full purchase price. Should the hat wear out due to normal wear and tear, poor workmanship or faulty material, it will be repaired or replaced free of charge. Tilley hats are guaranteed for life. In 2013, a Guardian reader reported that, when the fabric of their hat split after 17 years, Tilley still honoured the lifetime guarantee and replaced it. They’re expensive hats but the various risk-reversal elements clearly help keep them desirable purchases. A guarantee can make a big difference to how likely we are to choose a product or service. In the context of personal injury compensation claims, not everyone wants to have their day in court. On the other hand, in another article on this website, we’ve considered the pros and cons for those who want a guarantee that their personal injury claim’s outcome will be Continue Reading
Why a personal injury claim does not guarantee you your day in court
Can you have your day in court, with a personal claim, if that's what you want? Donald Trump used the Rolling Stones’ recording of their 1969 song “You Can't Always Get What You Want" during his 2016 primary and presidential campaigns. Following the Republican National Convention in July 2016, which was widely televised, the Stones went public with their views on the use of the song composed by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They stated that they did not endorse Trump. They also requested that Trump should stop using their songs to support his message. Despite these requests, Trump continued his use of the song at rallies, even beyond the 2016 presidential elections. It seems that, even if you are the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want. It is also the case that, if you are an injured person with a personal injury compensation claim, you can’t always get what you want – and we’re going to look at some aspects of that in this article. Most people ask if they Continue Reading
Uninsured and untraced drivers and personal injury claims
It's compulsory to have insurance to cover the risk that a third party will suffer loss because of your driving That’s the case whether the “injury” is to property or a person. As at 2016, however, figures published by Churchill Insurance suggested that, across the UK, there were estimated to be over a million uninsured motorists. In the worst urban hotspots (e.g. parts of London), you have as much as a one in eight chance that any motorist involved in an accident with you will be uninsured. What are important things to know if you are involved in an accident with an uninsured (or untraced) driver? The Government set up the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) in 1946. It is a limited company and it aims to help those who have suffered loss due to the actions of an uninsured or untraceable driver. The underlying principle is that no person should be left uncompensated because a driver who causes an accident is uninsured. Since the 1970s, the MIB has been an important means by Continue Reading
How soon can you choose your own solicitor under Before the Event insurance?
We’ve covered the topic of Before the Event insurance in other articles. Before the Event (BTE) Insurance is legal expenses insurance you can choose to take out. It means that if, for example, you are injured in an accident, the insurance covers the cost of legal advice on the prospects of claiming compensation. It’s an alternative to other funding methods such as no win-no fee and legal aid. One of the friction points of BTE Insurance is that you usually have to use the BTE insurer’s own panel solicitor for legal advice in the early stages. The justification most commonly given is that BTE insurers prefer to use their own panel solicitors for valid commercial and quality-control reasons. You can’t use, say, your own local, specialist solicitor for advice under the policy in the initial stages of advice. (You can still use them for advice, it just won’t be under the policy - which may not be a problem, in fact). The situation changes if it becomes necessary to raise a court Continue Reading
Where to look if you can’t find answers to your personal injury claim questions
Typos in stock photographs can be good inspiration. How annoying would it be if you could only find “answars” and no answers? And it turns out that, once you start looking for them, spelling mistakes in premium photographs keep turning up. If you don’t manage to “upgrade your life”, take heart from the fact that it might still be possible to “uprgade your life”. The above photo is marketed as “Upgrade your life”. So someone wrote this, someone photographed it and someone uploaded it to a website for sale. None of them noticed the jumbled up letters? Not seeing the wood for the trees is a problem for anyone who puts information on a website in the hope of helping others. Another aspect of this is the “curse of knowledge”, where you assume that your reader’s understanding of your topic is greater than it really is. If you pitch the level too high, your readers will leave before they’re much past the headline. On this website, we try to answer questions at a Continue Reading
5 ways we can better protect injury victims through improved regulation of legal services in Scotland
We want the law to offer better protection to consumers, right? An independent review of the regulation of legal services in Scotland is under way. The Minister of Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Annabelle Ewing, announced the review on 25 April 2017. The idea is get recommendations to reform and update the framework which regulates who can provide legal services and, for example, what complaints procedures should be available. In announcing the independent review, the Minister emphasised the main objective as placing “consumer interests firmly at the heart of any system of regulation, including the competitive provision of legal services.” While there is competition across the board to win business providing legal services to consumers, personal injury is one of the most competitive areas. In 2016, for example, a study by the online magazine, Search Engine Watch, worked out the UK’s most expensive Google Adwords. (These are the adverts at the top of any search Continue Reading
What are the benefits of a solicitor handling your personal injury claim (compared to a claims management company)?
In this article, we are considering the situation where you are making the decision between instructing a solicitor to represent your interests in a personal injury compensation claim and instructing someone else – such as a claims management company. We are not considering the situation where you are deciding between having a solicitor and representing your own interests. Grigor & Young LLP / Moray Claims have other articles about the pitfalls of a DIY personal injury claim and the perils of negotiating directly with the third party insurers. The 3 factors we want to highlight here are certainty, insurance and expertise. First of all, certainty. 1. It gives you certainty about who you are dealing with. Only those who undertake wide-ranging education, training and ongoing “Continuing Professional Development” are permitted to practise as a solicitor. At the moment, claims management companies are not regulated in Scotland. Anyone can set up a claims management Continue Reading