The Claim Process Explained

• Once we have your instructions (including full details of the accident circumstances and the injuries you sustained) we will make written contact with the person(s) or organisation (‘third party’) you consider to have been at fault and responsible for your accident in the form of a Letter of Claim. If we have their insurance details we will make contact with the insurer as well. When making contact we will provide the third party and/or its insurers with initial details of your claim.
  
  
• Under the terms of what is known as the Pre-Action Protocol, the third party and/or his/her/its insurers will have up to 21 days in which to acknowledge the Letter of Claim; failure to do so may result in sanctions for that party.
  
  
• Once the Letter of Claim has been acknowledged, the third party, or more usually the insurers, will, under the Protocol, have a further 90 days in which to investigate and report back to us with their views on liability. During this period, we may carry out further investigations and obtain further evidence to support your claim.
  
  
• If liability is admitted or not disputed we will make arrangements to obtain medical evidence to support your claim and gather further evidence to support other losses you may have incurred, such as loss of earnings. Depending on the individual circumstances of your claim, we may start gathering the medical evidence either during or after the expiry of the 90 day period.
  
  
• Once all the evidence has been gathered we will, subject to your instructions, seek to enter into negotiations to settle your claim, preferably without the need to involve the Court.
  
  
• If liability is disputed by the third party insurers, we will advise you on the best further course of action to be taken and, subject to your instructions, initiate Court proceedings against your opponent if necessary at the earliest opportunity with a view to progressing your claim to a satisfactory conclusion.
  
  
• The length of time taken to conclude a claim will vary from case to case and is very much dependent upon the individual circumstances. Whilst we cannot guarantee the timescales involved we will keep you regularly advised of developments and where possible give you indications of how long the process is likely to take.