Personal injury pay-outs in under a month

From April 2010 new rules will provide for personal injury claims to be turned around in less than a month. Associate and personal injury lawyer Jonathan White explains more.

Historically, the norm has been for personal injury claims to drag on for two or three years.

Under new rules recently announced by the government, a defendant will have only 15 working days to admit or deny liability.

Following receipt of medical evidence the defendant will have only 20 days to make an offer of settlement.

If settlement cannot be agreed the Judge will decide on paper how much the injured person is entitled to thus removing the need for a lengthy court hearing.

At the moment the process is only applicable to road accidents worth up to £10,000 but a similar scheme is inevitable for other claims such as employer's liability claims and cases against local authorities.

Claims involving significant injury are specifically excluded from the new process as a number of medical and other expert's reports are required in those cases to properly value the claim.

This modernisation of the claims process brings significant advantages to injured people, businesses and insurers.

From the injured person's perspective their claims should be dealt with significantly more quickly than what has been previously the case. Claims are streamlined and injured people are far less likely to need to attend court. The injured person will also know that their solicitors costs are covered under the scheme and their claim will be dealt with at no costs to them.

The advantage to businesses and insurers is that the claims will be dealt with far quicker meaning that businesses do not have to reserve huge sums of money for lengthy periods to cover claims that may or may not succeed. Insurers should see savings in their overall claims spend which in theory should lead to a reduction in premiums.

The main problem for defendants is that as a decision on liability needs to be made within 15 days, they must report any accident to their insurers as soon as possible or their insurers may refuse to indemnify them. When this process is extended to employer's liability claims, for instance, this will create huge challenges for business.

The new claims process brings personal injury litigation into the 21st century with claims being submitted on line by lawyers rather than preparing lengthy manuscripts written in Latin with a quill pen!

At Harvey Ingram, our 30-strong personal injury team is among the largest in the Midlands and already well prepared for these changes.

For more information on personal injury or if you would like advice, please contact Jonathan White on jonathan.white@harveyingram.com or call 0116 257 6145.