Moray Claims is a trading name of Grigor & Young LLP, Solicitors. Grigor & Young have offices in Elgin and Forres, Moray.
Accidents at work cover a wide range of accidents.
- You may have been injured by slipping or tripping on work premises.
- You may have been injured due to a failure to provide proper personal protective equipment.
- You may have been injured by a failure to provide proper work equipment (e.g. a ladder) or to maintain it.
- You may have been injured in a lifting and handling accident.
- You may have been injured as the result of falling from a height.
- You may have been injured because you did “something silly”.
If we take on your claim at G&Y, we will do so in one of three ways.
Legal aid
Eligibility for legal aid will depend on your financial circumstances.
If you qualify for legal aid, we will give serious consideration to using that as the funding mechanism for the claim but we will also discuss with you the other options mentioned below.
Note that if your claim is successful under any form of Scottish legal aid, you will receive 100% of your compensation. The legal aid rules prevent your solicitor taking any form of Success Fee as a deduction from your compensation.
“Before the event” (BTE) insurance
This is a type of legal expenses insurance which you may have attached to buildings or contents insurance, for example. Many people have this type of legal expenses insurance cover without realising it.
We will ask you to do a check for any such insurance policies.
We will go over them with you, if they exist, and we will contact the insurers on your behalf – at no cost to you – to find out whether the policy would provide cover in the circumstances of your case.
It is called “before the event” insurance because it is insurance you had in place before the date of your accident (the “event”). The next type of insurance (“after the event” insurance) can generally only be taken out if a check has been made for BTE insurance and there is none in place.
If your claim fails while it is covered under BTE insurance, there will be no cost to you. In the event that your claim succeeds with the benefit of BTE insurance, you will receive 100% of your compensation, either as agreed with the other side or as awarded by a court.
“After the event” (ATE) insurance
This is the type of insurance which applies in most “no win-no fee” arrangements for personal injury claims.
This insurance is taken out because it’s not generally good enough for your own solicitors to say that you will not have to pay anything to them if your claim fails. If your claim is unsuccessful after a court action has been raised, there is a risk that you may have to pay some or all of the other side’s costs. This risk is much lower since the introduction of qualified one-way costs shifting in Scotland but the risk is not nil.
If conducting your claim through Grigor & Young, we will take out ATE insurance through an insurer called ARAG.
Where your accident relates to an accident at work, the total insurance premium payable to ARAG will depend upon the level of damages/compensation you receive.
- Above £1000 and up to £10,000, the policy premium is £341.60. Grigor & Young will meet the full premium in that scenario. You will receive 100% of your compensation.
- Above £10,000 and up to £25,000, the premium is £554.40. Grigor & Young will meet the full premium in that scenario. You will receive 100% of your compensation.
- Above £25,000 and up to £100,000, the premium is £912.80. Grigor & Young will meet the full premium in that scenario. You will receive 100% of your compensation.
- Above £100,000, the premium is £3,360. In that scenario, Grigor & Young will meet 50% of the policy premium (£1,680) and the other half of the premium will be deducted from your compensation (i.e. you will pay 50% of the premium), i.e. £1,680.
We (G&Y) have a general policy of meeting the cost of the ATE premium ourselves where the accident happened in Moray and/or the client resides in Moray.
As you can see, however, this does not apply in all circumstances. It does not apply where the value of your claim exceeds £100,000.
It is worth pointing out that if, say, a claim settled for £110,000, having to pay £1,680 out of the compensation towards the ATE policy premium represents losing about 1.5% of the compensation. This is a small percentage when you consider that many providers of services for no win-no fee personal injury compensation claims will expect to take 20% of your compensation as a success fee.
Get in touch for further information.
If you have any questions about the information provided in this article or if you would like to have a more detailed discussion about a possible personal injury compensation claim based upon an accident at work, please get in touch with us.
All initial enquiries are without charge or obligation. You can contact Peter or Marie on 01343 544077 or why not send us a Free Online Enquiry?
