How long will a personal injury claim take to settle? 

Wondering how long a claim will take is a prevalent question but the reality is that no reputable legal service provider can provide a precise number or time frame.

We understand that the frustration of any process is often caused by a lack of information and unmet expectations so at the very least we’d like to shed light on how your claim works by explaining how we work.

And how we work can essentially be boiled down to three essential parts:

• Establishing liability
• Assessing the value of your case
• Linking the accident to your injury (“causation”)

Each of these points is important for different reasons and each can be impacted by issues separate from your civil claim – and therefore impact the time your claim takes to settle.

Establishing liability

This is about getting the other person or organisation to accept they are responsible for providing you with compensation. In some cases, the insurance company for the other side (known as the defender) quickly accepts liability so the work on your case is focused mainly on working out how much you are entitled to.

But in other cases, the defender may make no admission of liability or dispute it entirely. This means we then have to gather evidence to show they are indeed responsible. Good evidence can allow us to persuade them to concede liability.  In some rare cases, this dispute can result in the case going to court where arguments become more focused. If a settlement still cannot be negotiated a special trial known as a ‘Proof’ is held. This proof will then have a sheriff or judge decide who is responsible based on the evidence each side provides. But even if such a hearing is scheduled, most cases settle out of court long before anyone has to attend a courtroom. Only in the most serious or complicated of cases does anyone need to go to court, and this is usually only done to challenge a grey area of law and it can be debated what is accurate or fair.

Establishing liability can be helped in a number of ways:

• Writing to the defender to ask about their position
• Criminal trial verdicts
• Witness statements
• Gathering findings like that of HSE investigations, NHS reviews etc

Waiting for the outcomes of such investigations is not always needed. Still, in many cases, it can help remove the complicated hurdle of trying to establish liability and provide you with more evidence that may otherwise have not been available. Witness statements are crucial and the courts always prefer to hear from witnesses.

So if a negligent driver causes a serious road accident then it may be that your claim needs to await the outcome of the driver’s trial. It’s not essential but it can happen and if it does, this naturally has a bearing on the time of your case.

Assessing the value of your claim

This is arguably the largest and most significant part of any personal injury claim.

Calculating the value of your claim is known as ‘quantum’ and this overall figure is made up of multiple different sums called “heads of claim”.

These relate to different aspects of losses or consequences a person suffers following an accident and can include things like:

• Pain and suffering (known as ‘solatium’)
• Loss of earnings (including impact to pension)
• Help from family members
• Damaged to clothing or personal belongings
• Travel costs
• Medical bills (like prescriptions or physiotherapies)
• Equipment
• Home care costs
• Home adaptations

This list gives a little insight into how a case is valued – the top three tend to appear in nearly every claim while the last three tend to only apply to cases where people suffered more serious and life-changing injuries.

The amount of compensation you are entitled to will vary according to the severity of your injuries and the unique way the injury has impacted your life. Obtaining independent medical evidence from expert doctors is crucial. Calculating all the financial losses is an intensive process that requires complete accuracy and supporting evidence.

This process naturally takes time as your solicitor gathers the right information for each head of claim. Sometimes multiple reports are required which can take time, especially as we will instruct the leading experts in their field.   

More information on how your claim is calculated can be found here.

Causation

“Causation” is a medico-legal term that is quite literally about proving a direct ‘cause and effect’ link between the accident and your injury.

This might seem similar to establishing liability but it’s actually a separate issue and crucial for the success of any injury claim and even when things might appear simple on the surface there can sometimes be disputes. In many cases, it is obvious and beyond doubt that an accident directly resulted in an injury. But there are some scenarios where that is not always the case.

A common reason behind disputes is if a period of time has passed before someone reports any injuries. For example, if you went to the doctor complaining of neck pain three weeks after a road accident then the insurance company might accept liability but dispute causation. This means they accept the driver they act is responsible for the crash but they deny that the collision had anything to do with your neck pain. 

Another reason for a dispute can be if someone has one or several pre-existing health conditions. For example, if you fracture your wrist at work and then complain of ongoing pain after it has healed – but your medical records show you lived with painful arthritis in your wrist for years before the accident – then the insurance company may dispute the accident as the cause of the new pain.

Causation and pre-existing health conditions are also what make clinical negligence claims very difficult. An NHS health board can admit to making mistakes during a procedure but go on to argue those mistakes did not cause result in a new injury or loss and that any adverse effects are the result of complications from the health condition(s) you already live with.

Disputes on causation mean your solicitor is forced to dedicate time to gathering reports and evidence from medical practitioners to prove that cause-and-effect link and the time this takes can impact the time your case takes to settle.