FAQs

This is a government funded scheme designed to compensate the innocent victims of any violent crime for their injuries. If you have been the victim of an assault or of any incident which has caused you physical or psychological harm as a result of a crime you must report it to the police as soon as possible and then cooperate with any police investigation. You should then seek legal advice as soon as possible as there is a strict two-year time limit to submit an application to the relevant government department, which is known as the Criminal Injury Compensation Authority.

The first thing to do is to make sure that you have taken a note of the other driver’s full details, including their name and address, their registration number and their insurance details if possible. You should then notify your own insurers that you have been involved in an accident and you should contact your solicitor to seek legal advice at an early stage. As your insurer will advise, never admit liability for the accident at the scene, even if you think that it may have been your fault - you could be mistaken.

You should try to ensure that any accident or injury has been recorded by your employer in an accident book. You should then contact your solicitor as soon as possible to seek legal advice and you should write out a straightforward account of what happened while the events are still fresh in your mind. You may have a claim for this so long as under the law your accident has been caused or even partially caused by the negligence of your employer or by your employer’s breach of health & safety legislation. We can assess this at an early stage.

No, your compensation is tax free, although you can only recover loss of earnings net of income tax and national insurance.

This varies considerably depending on several factors, including how cooperative the defendant and their insurers are, and whether they are prepared to admit liability for your claim at an early stage, but also depending on your recovery period and length of time that it takes to obtain the full medical evidence to support your case. On average, and depending on these factors, most cases take anything between six months and three years to conclude, although complex cases can take longer than this if they proceed all the way to a court hearing.

A success fee is the element of legal costs that we are entitled to charge if we win the case, to compensation us for having taken a risk that we would not be paid if we had been unsuccessful, as not all of our costs are recoverable from the Defendant. It is the success fee that you are asked to contribute out of your compensation as we are no longer able to recover that element of legal fees from the defendant, even if we win the case, because of legal changes made by the government in 2013. The Success fee is capped at 25% but may be less depending on the risks associated with your claim and/or the amount of work we do to finalise it. 

Your claim will cost you nothing at all if we are unsuccessful as you will be protected from having to pay any legal costs in those circumstances. If we are successful with your claim, you will be asked to make a contribution towards your legal costs out of your compensation, but this deduction will be 25% (the Success Fee, see below for more information) and is to compensate us for the risk that if your claim was unsuccessful then we would not be paid at all. Your basic legal costs, if we are successful, are recovered from your opponent, but are capped dependant on the complexity and value of your claim.  If there are any legal costs not paid by your opponent, then they may be deducted from the compensation that you receive. We will discuss this with you beforehand, so that you know what to expect at the conclusion of your claim and will always strive to keep any deductions to your compensation to a minimum.

Negligence is a breach of duty of care which a person or business may owe to you. Negligence can give rise to a claim for damages provided losses have been caused by the negligence. It is often also possible to sue a professional for breach of contract.