More Personal Injury Myths

Here is the follow up post to my article about 5 personal injury myths which is posted here, this articles aims to clear up a few myths that people currently believe when making injury claims and accident claims.

accident claim

Myth Six - Compensation culture means people will claim for anything.

There is a huge myth that there is a growing compensation culture in Britain and people will now try and claim for anything and everything even if it is morally dubious. Once again this is just hear say, according to Which. They state “levels of compensation have not risen dramatically since 1989″.

These results show that legal professionals have stuck to accepting the same amount of cases to take up. This does not mean that people aren’t asking lawyers to represent them for ridiculous claims, but more that lawyers are rightfully turning them down.

Myth Seven - Making a claim against your boss will get you sacked.

One thing that’s seems to stop some people making a personal injury claim against their employer is the fear of being sacked afterwards. If any employer did sack you after making a claim, then this would be just cause for unfair dismissal, most employers wouldn’t be stupid enough to do this. The law protects employees who are in these situations although you do need to have been with the job for a year or more.

Myth Eight - You shouldn’t receive treatment during a claim.

These days insurers look at the accident claim process in a proactive manner and might even help arrange treatment for the injured person. The most common situation would be arranging for physiotherapy for a whiplash victim once the liability was established.

Myth Nine - The law looks out for big companies, there’s no way I will win.

The truth is actually the opposite of the myth. Laws in the UK are some of the best in the world for looking after individuals. The public are well looked after with health and safety laws governing road safety and vehicle usage, the UK also benefits from free legal advice.

Again please contact a legal professional before making a claim.

The Price Of Injury And Illness For Residents Of The UK

One in eight British residents has apparently lost out on wages due to time off work from illness or injury, with an average loss of £5,320 per person being reported. From these statistics, we can reveal that 34% of people missed more than a week from work due to illness and injury, 58% had to have more than a month off and 17% ended up missing more than a year.

A large number of these employees who had to have time off will have lost out on a fair bit of money, but the research shows that only 8% had insurance that covered their losses. One person in nine that lost money through injury or illness, lost over £5,000 and one in twenty lost more than £40,000. This means that your solution is to take out an insurance policy or if you suffered an accident at work, you should look into making an accident compensation claim. Most people would probably think that the government would be able to help them out, but help from the state is unlikely to make up for a large drop in income. Incapacity benefit is set at £78.50 per week for people on long term sick leave.

Most people don’t think of the implications of what would happen if they had to take time off work due to long term sickness or an injury from work. Around 23% of people when asked, said they would borrow money from family or friends, 11% said they would borrow from the bank, 5% of the people asked said they would postpone any big bills like mortgage and only 8% said they currently had insurance to cover them in such a situation.

Obviously your employers have no responsibility if you develop a serious illness and have to leave work, but they are very much responsible if you suffer an injury from an accident caused by negligence. There are plenty of no win no fee companies that can help you recover costs from an accident in the workplace.

Please always contact a qualified injury lawyer when considering making a claim.