Personal injury

An injury changes more than a person’s health. For someone who runs a business, or depends on a key employee, it can mean months away from work, orders that cannot be delivered, income that no payslip records, and care that relatives quietly provide. The insurer on the other side has handled many such files, with its own doctor and its own scales; the injured person meets the process once, while still recovering. Early offers tend to reflect what is visible early, not what the injury will cost over a lifetime.

Personal injury work is largely a matter of proof and valuation, carried out in negotiation long before any court is involved, and each head of loss must be established on its own:

• the rules on the medical examination — who appoints the doctor, which questions are put, and the victim’s right to be assisted by their own doctor;
• the rules on the point at which an injury is considered stable, and on what may be claimed before that point;
• the rules on temporary and permanent incapacity, at work and in daily life;
• the rules on lost earnings and lost earning capacity, including for the self-employed, whose income varies from year to year;
• the rules on pain, loss of amenity, disfigurement and other non-financial loss, and on the reference scales used to value them;
• the rules on the cost of care, adaptations to a home or vehicle, and help given by a relative instead of a professional;
• the rules on the claims of relatives — for the support they have lost and for their own distress;
• the rules on whether a business may claim its own loss when an owner or key employee is injured by someone else;
• the rules on turning future costs and lost income into a sum payable now, and on choosing between a lump sum and periodic payments.

Our lawyers can support you with this.