Accidents & Illnesses abroad - 10 simple steps to achieving your compensation
For most people, a compensation claim isn’t an everyday occurrence so we thought it would be helpful to explain how we manage your claim and the steps that we both need to go through.
Step 1 - Obtaining a full description of your accident or illness
We need to understand as much as possible about your accident or illness – exactly how it happened or what caused you to be ill and why, the injuries you suffered, what happened immediately afterwards and how your life has been affected as a result.
Step 2 - Obtaining your medical records
We will ask your GP and hospital for your full medical records so that we can establish the extent of your injuries or illness, the treatment you received, and how long it will take you to recover. If your treatment was carried out abroad, we can obtain and, if need be, translate those records.
Step 3 - Contacting the company responsible for your accident or illness
Once we have decided who is responsible for your accident or illness, we will inform them that you intend to claim compensation and send them the details you have provided. We will let you know their response and, if they dispute the case, we will ask you to provide your comments on their response.
Step 4 - Arranging your medical assessment
We will arrange for an independent clinician to evaluate the extent of your illness or injuries and whether they will affect your ability to work in the short or long term. In holiday illness claims, it may sometimes be possible to obtain a “desktop” report that can be done based on your witness statement and any medical records so that you don’t have to go for a medical examination.
Step 5 - Collating details of your financial loss
In addition to compensation for your injuries or illness, you can claim for another other expenses you have incurred as a result, including lost earnings, expenses travelling to medical appointments, and the cost of care and help with everyday tasks.
Step 6 - Providing you with our valuation of your losses
Once we have received all your medical reports, we can provide a valuation for your illness, injuries and associated losses. We will send this to you along with your medical report. You then need to complete and sign the medical slip and schedule of losses and return them to us.
Step 7 - Sending your valuation to the other party's insurer
Once we have received your signed medical slip and schedule of losses, we send these to the defendant’s insurer and ask for their best offer to settle the case. Often the insurance company takes 4 – 6 weeks to get back to us.
Step 8 - Negotiating the maximum settlement possible
We work hard to achieve the maximum possible settlement for your case, which can take some time to negotiate. So we text and email you to keep you up to date with our progress.
Step 9 - Issuing Court proceedings
If the defendant’s insurer refuses to make a realistic offer, then we issue Court proceedings for a hearing. It is very unlikely that you need to attend this hearing, so there’s no need to worry about it.
Step 10 - Sending you your compensation payment
Once we receive your compensation payment from the defendant’s insurer, we let you know. Most important of all, we send you your compensation payment straight away!
How long does a claim take?
Because the circumstances surrounding every claim and their effects are different, it’s very difficult to give a definitive answer on how long it takes to settle a claim. Often it depends on how quickly our clients provide us with essential information, how quickly we can get medical records and assessments, and whether the insurance companies are willing to provide realistic offers to settle the claims.
Whilst we aim to settle your claim as quickly as possible, we also want to ensure we secure the maximum compensation for you. This often means we have to do some hard negotiation with the defendants – which takes extra time. Our aim is to balance progressing the claim as fast as possible with getting you the maximum settlement.
We realise that you’ll be keen to know about the progress of your claim so we will send you regular emails and texts to keep you up to date, and also to remind you if there is any information we’re waiting for from you.