How long will it take?
This is the million dollar question and unfortunately one to which there is no easy answer. Perhaps a good place to start is by reading our section, 'Personal Injury Claims Explained' which sets out the process from the point at which someone instructs an accident solicitor until the end when the compensation award is made.
As a general guide, if your claim relates to a relatively straightforward road traffic accident, where liability is not likely to be an issue and recovery is prompt, the claim could be settled within 6-12 months. More complicated matters may, however, take a matter of years to reach settlement.
How long your case may take to reach settlement will depend on a number of factors such as:
The Type of Claim
Whether the other party admits that your injury was their fault Whether you have recovered from the accident, and if you have not recovered, how long it will be until the full extent of your injuries is known.
Remember that once a final settlement has been accepted your lawyer can't go back and ask for more money if your recovery appears to be taking longer than was initially anticipated, so getting the right prognosis from the doctor, even if it takes longer, is very important.
The length of time it takes for a reasonable settlement offer to be made - this can involve some to-ing and fro-ing, because we will usually not want to accept the first offer that the other side makes as we can often hold out for more money.
The Type of Claim
We as personal injury solicitors deal largely with three different types of claim. These are ones that are caused by road traffic accidents, accidents or injuries in the workplace and accidents which happen in public places such as slips or trips.
In our experience, road traffic accidents are usually the quickest to be concluded. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the injuries in Road Traffic accidents are often less serious because of the seatbelt restraints. Secondly, there are often several witnesses to this type of accident who will come forward and provide evidence as to what happened and this helps show who was to blame.
Accidents in public places and at work often take a lot longer to settle. This is often because the person or organisation you are claiming against might try to deny that it was their fault and put forward a defence.
If you wish to speak to one of our specialist personal injury solicitors, please contact us on freephone 0808 155 4870. We have offices in London, Manchester & Birmingham and operate nationally.