Personal injury claims have rapidly increased over recent years. According to the Actuarial Profession, the number of personal injury claims in the UK increased by 18% in 2011 compared to the previous year. Therefore, you are not alone if you have had an accident that wasn’t your fault and would like to know more about how to make a personal injury claim.

What is a Personal Injury?

A good place to start is to discuss what actually constitutes a personal injury claim. The best way to determine whether or not you have valid grounds to make a claim is to consider how you have been affected as a result of the accident:

• Has your ability to work been affected?
• Has your quality of life changed for the worse?
• Are you in financial difficulty as a result of your accident/injury?

There are a number of different personal injuries and each individual case is different in terms of how the injury was sustained and how severe it is. Therefore, you need to seek the advice of a personal injury solicitor to give you specific advice related to your case and the likelihood of the claim being successful.

Proving that someone else is at fault

The most important part of any potential personal injury claim is to ensure that you are able to prove that someone else is either partially or fully responsible for your accident. This could be by slipping on a wet floor that wasn’t correctly signalled by a wet floor sign, or tripping over cables at work that weren’t properly covered.

A good way of highlighting someone else’s fault in the incident is by gathering as much evidence as possible to support your claim. Featured below are a few pieces of evidence that are usually extremely useful in personal injury claim cases:

• Talk to witnesses – Witnesses are the best form of evidence to support your case as they can also give an accurate representation of events that will help to prove that the accident wasn’t your fault. As a result, it is essential that you take down the details of any witnesses who could potentially support your claim.
• Take photographs – Photographs are a great way of showing why your accident occurred. For example, if you tripped over a raised tile on a step, take a picture and prove that’s why you tripped.
• Fill out the accident book – If you have an accident at work or in a public place such as a gym, there should be an accident book for you to fill out. It is advised that you complete this as soon as possible to record the accident. Be sure to retain a copy for yourself for safekeeping.
• Medical reports – First and foremost, your health is the number one priority. Therefore, if you sustain a personal injury it is essential that you head straight to the hospital or local GP practice to receive medical treatment. The medical reports will also be used as evidence in any potential injury claim as they state what injuries have been sustained and how severe they are.

 

Injury Claim Specialists is one of the UK’s leading personal injury advice websites. We pride ourselves on offering easy to understand, plain English injury claims advice on a wide range of different injury related topics. There are also a number of extremely useful tools such as the Compensation Calculator, which can give you a compensation estimate in less than a second, and the Injury Claims Guide is at hand to answer all of your personal injury related questions.