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Thread: Fair insurance settlement?

  1. #1
    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
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    Fair insurance settlement?

    I've alluded to this plenty in the past, but here's the story:

    On November 8th last year, my wife was travelling back up the M20 towards London in her dad's car (he was driving). In the front passenger seat was her mother. She was in the back seat behind her dad (I.E. on the offside). They were coming back from visiting her maternal grandmother who at the time was in Maidstone hospital with terminal cancer.

    I'm not sure where exactly it happened, as I haven't seen the police report, but somewhere fairly near the Junction with the M25, a van came up a sliproad to join the motorway and clipped the nearside front of her dad's car as it pulled in to join the motorway. That sent her dad's car into a spin- whereapon it was T-Boned very hard, fully side on (on the offside), by a transit van that had been overtaking them in the middle lane. I think they ended up buried in the armco on the nearside of the motorway.

    My wife and her mother just about walked away from the accident. My father-in-law was knocked unconscious, and was only released from the wreckage after the fire brigade took the roof off his car. He spent four or five days in Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup before he was released. He's still not recovered now- and yet the DWP have just decided that that he's fit to return to work and have stopped his incapacity benefit. He's appealed of course, and I may start another thread pending the outcome of that.

    Anyway, I went to pick up their personal effects from the wreck a couple of weeks after the accident- and it was a proper mess. The seat where my wife had been siting was stoved in by at least four inches- and I reckon it must have sprung back a bit from the initial impact. My wife works in a (posh) cafe, and she had to take two weeks off work after the accident- followed by several more days when she'd have to go home early as she was in pain just standing up. After a flareup in December she had to take another week off.

    From the time of the accident until Christmas she was in more or less constant pain from her injuries, which affected her sleep. What affected her sleep more were the nightmares and flashbacks- countless times while she was in bed and I was up on the computer (as now) I had to run in and calm her down and comfort her. I've had to do it just right now as I type in fact; I guess her nightmares now may not be to do with the crash although I don't recall her having them beforehand.

    Her back pain persisted until July this year; in June she got some NHS physiotherapy sessions which pretty much cured it.

    Today we got the offer- via the solicitor appointed by her father's insurance company- from the third party's insurance company in respect of her personal injury. It was £1400. Her solicitor thinks that that's too low- and that she should offer to settle for £1800. They've also somehow, despite us (as I recall) keeping them apprised of her ongoing costs, got the idea that she only had a week off work and so is only claiming for one week's lost wages. That, I guess, is a clerical error, and fairly easily resolved with some letters to her head office to corroborate the fact that she actually lost three or more weeks wages in total.

    So this is the question. Neither of us are the type of people who see an accident as an opportunity to rip off an insurance company for our own personal gain. Five years ago a woman ran into the back of my car and gave me a stiff neck for a few days, but I only claimed for the damage to my car. However we know of more than one person who, via some ambulance chasing lawyers, have received ~£3k just for whiplash injuries sustained in a rear-ender where nobody was seriously hurt. My wife, as I said, suffered months of pain and psycholgical damage. Even £1800 sounds to her like an insult. We haven't even got into the fact that the accident cost her valuable time with her terminally ill nan, who died just under two months later.

    So....anyone been here before? Do you think she should settle for the £1800, or persue them for more- via the courts if necessary? She's genuinely suffered for months- and, as someone who loves her very much, so have I. I hasten to add that I don't think I deserve any compensation, but I'm damned if I'm going to advise her to settle for less than she deserves.

    I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts.

  2. #2
    Flat cap, Whippets, Cave. Clunk's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    I was in a Ford fiesta that was shunted by a bus (was it you? ) about 7 years back, and the only real injuries were a stiff neck and the usual whiplash stuff - nothing major really.

    Anyway, we were advised to claim, and I got £1250 and the driver got £1500. They offered me £1000 at first, and the driver £1250, and our solicitor said that he always advises people to refuse the first offer as there is usually more in the pot. It was probably so he would get more, but I cant be sure about that.

    Yours seems much more serious, so I would have thought that it was worth looking into further.

    Good luck
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    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Not me mate- in my one year as a bus driver, I've not injured anyone AFAIK.

    Thank you though- £1250 for minor injuries 7 years ago suggests to me that £1800 now (bearing in mnind inflation) for some fairly nasty injuries is a bit of a mickey take.

    Anyone else? The more the merrier.

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    Editable... jimbouk's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    I got £1250 and my gf £1400 when someone went into the back of me. Relatively minor accident and no long term damage to both of us (few months of back pain from the whip-lash). Sounds like the offer is rather low. £1800 for the injury sounds better, would there be more on top for time off work and other things? The lawyers who were looking after my case said keep hold of any receipts for expenses, taxi rides etc - and even things like getting a cleaner in if housework was too much. I didn't go to such lengths because I wasn't that bad, but sounds like their accident was a lot more serious. Did you get a report by an independent medical person and what did that say?

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    Don't feed the trolls... tiggerai's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    I got £1600 for a rear-end smash that messed up my back again (I'd also had whiplash 2 years before so I needed quite a bit of treatment on my neck.)

    That was a year and a half ago.

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    Kirstie Allsopp Theo's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Two chaps I know are currently in the same process as you. They were rear-ended quite badly and received shoulder injuries and whiplash, etc. I believe they both had to take 3 weeks to a month off work.

    I don't know what the driver has been offered... but I think the passenger has already accepted £2100. For an accident that doesn't sound half as bad as your family's, I think £2100 is quite fair. Push for more, if you can.

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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    The simple question is does the proposed settlement cover everything it's cost you in a tangable sense? I.e. loss of earnings/what that holiday time was worth + costs of prescriptions

    As long as that's covered then anything else is a bonus

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    mush-mushroom b0redom's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Phone up the ambulance chasers and take em for all you can get :-)

    http://www.accidentsdirect.com/v7/index.aspx

    Seriously though, at least they might give you a ballpark of what they think. We're not really the right people to ask.

  10. #9
    No more Mr Nice Guy. Nick's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    My mum had a bad crash that knacked her back very badly. She still has trouble now even though the accident was nearly 20 years ago.

    I know that the claim process took forever, even though the police successfully prosecuted the guy who hit her for dangerous driving... It dragged out so long that at one point she was ready to accept a very low offer.

    So my advice is to hang in and keep refusing to settle unless you can get a part-payment... ie, some money now as part of an ongoing claim to cover costs so far. My mum did that... it's essentially removing the 'in full and final payment' clause from anything you sign.

    I don't know how much she got in the end but it was certainly a lot more than £2000 seeing as she had massive medical bills for the resultant back problems.
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    mush-mushroom b0redom's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Hey, it might even be enough for the deposit on a house!

    (Runs for cover)

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    Senior Member Stringent's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    £1800 still sounds low to me.

    Thing is though, no matter how much the compensation, its never enough to cover the 'life' cost and the effect that it has on it.

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    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    I don't know the figures, but a good friend of mine has just settled a compensation clame from when another driver veird onto her side of the road and clipped the wing. This was at 60mph ish for both cars. This was almost 3 years ago, as she has just changed her replacement car because the finance was up on the original (only a few months old t the time of the accident).

    The solicitor appointed by her insurance company ended up sueing the other insuance company for stalling to get them into court etc. I think is was eventually settled out of court, but not until about 3 or 4 offers were made in the mean time.

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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    I had a head on collision back in 96, i think i got somewhere in the region of £3K. But the first offer is always an insult, mine was £1k and my solicitor said that she would not advise me to take it. I take it your wife has had a medical, and that the report has been fully done? I had a full medical, which showed that i was still not fully recovered from the accident some 6 months after the crash. My company also wrote a letter saying that i had taken 2 weeks off, and that i missed out on overtime.

    I do have to say that i had some great advice given to me during the whole process. My mum worked at an insurance company, so i had access to people who did this sort of thing day in day out. But don't expect a quick resolution, mine took 2 years before i was paid out.

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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Most standard injury claims are dealt with by referring to Kemp and Kemp. A psychiatric illness would obviously affect any claim of compensation, but it would a) have to be diagnosed by the relevant expert and b) have arisen due to the event. As you might imagine, schizophrenia from a car accident isn't overly common. Panic attacks and the like don't tend to come under this bracket, which is unfortunate in way. For example a nervous driver gets shunted and suffers panic attacks from then on whilst in a car. Probably more detrimental to their life than suffering a physical injury!

    The compensation is really just based on the injury and time off, it's not meant to be a punitive sum. Some people just like to settle as it's quick and easy for them... Just give them a bit of hassle and make sure they log her time off due of the injury.

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    Senior Member mcmiller's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    one of my friends is personal injury solictor and reckons that insustain whiplash its roughly £1200 for 3 weeks then anywhere upto £8000 for 8 months if i recall correctly

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    Now with added sobriety Rave's Avatar
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    Re: Fair insurance settlement?

    Thank you all for the replies. Sorry if it wasn't clear from my original post (I was drunk)- the £1400 they've offered is purely compensation, her actual expenses will be added on top. She actually ended up losing about £400 in wages IIRC, and spent about £70 on a back support and heat pads. There were no travel expenses though- we get free public transport since I'm a bus driver, so no point taking a taxi anywhere. As I said, we're not greedy.

    By the sounds of it £1800 is in the ballpark, albeit at the low end. I might get her to ask for 2.5K, then maybe see if we can settle at 2.1-2.2. If they won't budge then I guess we'll take the £1800 her solicitor reckons is right, it's not worth going to court for couple of hundred quid.

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