Personal Injury Compensation Claims | No Win No Fee

By Danielle Griffin. Last Updated 17th May 2023. When it comes to claiming personal injury compensation, it’s important to be aware of your legal rights and the steps you need to take to help you succeed.

At Accident Claims, we offer free advice on a range of topics relating to personal injury claims. This advice comes in the form of our guides, the links to which you can read below.

We can also provide you with advice on your case if you:

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Personal Injury Compensation – Am I Eligible?

In order to be eligible to make a personal injury compensation claim, it’s necessary to prove negligence. This is achieved by satisfying three criteria:

  1. That the defendant owed you a duty of care
  2. Their acts or omissions breached that duty
  3. And as a result of that breach, you suffered an injury

In cases involving accidents at work and road traffic accidents, proving duty of care is quite straightforward. That’s because all employers owe their employees a duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Likewise, all road users owe each other a duty of care when on the roads.

The point of contention is often proving a breach of duty occurred. This is because the duty of care owed is only a reasonable one, not an absolute one.

So, for example, your employer is expected to do all they reasonably can to keep you safe at work. If they can prove that they’ve taken all possible steps but an accident still occurred, they may escape liability.

What Is The Personal Injury Claim Time Limit?

In addition to proving negligence occurred, you must start the legal process within the personal injury claim time limit. This is typically three years from the date of the accident that caused your injuries.

However, for certain personal injury compensation claims, there are exceptions to this limitation period. This includes:

  • Those who lack the mental capacity to start their own claim. In these cases, the time limit is indefinitely suspended. During this time, a court-appointed litigation friend could make the claim on their behalf. However, if the injured party regains this mental capacity and a claim has not been made for them, they will have three years from the date of recovery to begin the claiming process.
  • Those under the age of 18. In these cases, the time limit is paused until their 18th birthday. Prior to this, a litigation friend could make the claim on their behalf. Once the injured party turns 18, they will have three years from the date of their 18th birthday to start a claim if one has not been made for them.

If you have any questions about the time limits for personal injury claims, get in touch with one of our advisors using the contact details at the top of the page.

How Are Personal Injury Claims Calculated?

Settlements for successful personal injury claims could include general and special damages.

General damages compensate you for the pain and suffering you have endured due to your injury. When valuing your claim, a legal professional may refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This is a document that lists guideline compensation brackets for various types of injuries. In our table below, we’ve included some of the figures stated in the 16th edition of the JCG.

Please only use this table as a guide.

InjuryNotesCompensation Bracket
Severe Leg Injuries (b) Very Serious (ii)Found within this bracket are injuries that lead to permanent mobility problems, multiple fractures that take years to heal and require extensive treatment and where arthritis has developed making further surgical treatment likely.£54,830 to £87,890
Severe Neck Injury (iii)The award will consider the duration of the most serious symptoms, the extent of the required treatment and the prognosis. Injuries in this bracket include those that cause chronic conditions and a significant permanent disability, such as fractures, dislocations and severe soft tissue damage.£45,470 to
£55,990
Less Severe Brain DamageThe award will consider the severity of the initial injury, any continuing disability and personality changes as well as depression.£15,320 to £43,060
Moderate Pelvis and Hip Injury (i)Claimants have experienced a significant injury to the pelvis or hips, but permanent disability is not major.£26,590 to £39,170
Less Severe Arm InjuryThe claimant has suffered from significant disabilities, but a substantial degree of recovery has occurred or is expected.£19,200 to £39,170
Moderate Back Injury (ii)The award depends on the severity of the original injury, pain levels, the extent of any required treatment, lifestyle impact and prognosis. £12,510 to £27,760
Moderate Shoulder InjuryIn this bracket, the claimant suffers from a frozen shoulder that causes movement limitations and discomfort with symptoms lasting around two years. Also included in this bracket are soft tissue injuries with non-minimal symptoms lasting beyond this time.£7,890 to £12,770
Wrist Injury (d)In this bracket, the claimant takes longer than 12 months to recover from a fracture or soft tissue injury, save for minor symptoms.£6,080 to £10,350
Moderate Toe InjuriesInjuries found within this bracket include relatively straightforward fractures or exacerbation of a pre-existing degenerative condition or laceration injuries.Up to £9,600
Nose or Nasal Complex Fractures (iii)In this bracket, the claimant has suffered da displaced fracture that has required nothing more than manipulation.£2,520 to
£3,150

Special Damages

You might also be awarded special damages as part of your personal injury compensation. This compensates you for any expenses you incurred due to your injury. However, to be able to claim special damages, you will need to submit evidence regarding your financial losses, such as bank statements or receipts.

Examples of losses you might be able to recover under special damages include:

  • Medical expenses, such as the cost of prescriptions.
  • Loss of earnings. This could include your past, present and future losses.
  • Travel costs, including taxi fares to and from medical appointments.
  • The cost of adaptations to your home, such as installing a ramp, if they are needed to cope with your injuries.

If you have any questions about how compensation is awarded in personal injury claims, please get in touch with one of our advisors.

Real Examples Of Personal Injury Claims

To give you an idea of the types of personal injury claims that could justify compensation, we thought we’d share some real-life examples from cases handled by our solicitors:

  • One of our clients secured a compensation payout of £143,770 when he suffered a serious injury to his ankle. It was caused by a scaffolding plank that hadn’t been properly secured, causing the claimant to fall and injure himself.
  • Another of our clients received a compensation award of £280,000 in an accident involving faulty machinery. She was operating a rewind roll machine when her hand was pulled into the mechanism, causing multiple hand fractures that required surgery and skin grafts. The accident could have been avoided if her employer had secured a guard to the machine to protect from hand injuries.
  • Another claim involved a lack of training on health and safety and manual handling, plus a failure to conduct a risk assessment on the part of the employer. Our client was asked to load a 1-tonne press onto an electric stacker lift.  However, it fell and pinned our client to the floor. He suffered a broken collar bone, shoulder blade, ribs, jaw and a large cut to the head. He received £58,000 in personal injury compensation.

Read Our Guides

Below, you can find more of our guides on personal injury compensation claims: