Personal injury claims have existed for as long as the UK has had a legal system. Personal injury claims can actually be dated back to the reign of Henry II, who would deal with injury claims either himself or through advisors to settle, for the most part, agricultural injuries.
However, personal injury claims only really became popular (if we are defining ‘popular’ by the number of claims processed) in 1995, which was when Conditional Fee agreements – otherwise known as no win, no fee agreements – were implemented into courts in England and Wales. No win, no fee was actually made a fundamental part of the law via the Courts & Legal Services Act 1990 (Section 58) but it was 1995 when no win, no fee was introduced.
The reason no win, no fee boosted the popularity of personal injury claims, is because it is an effectively free service at the point of use. The claimant does not have to pay any legal fees upfront whereas before they did – so to get a claim going it used to cost hundreds of pounds at least. The way a solicitor gets paid under such an agreement is by winning their case. Solicitors can then take up to 25% of the settlement figure to cover their costs, or they can reclaim their costs from the other side.
Most Popular Types of Personal Injury Claim
The most common type of injury claim is for road traffic accidents, and the most common injury claimed for from a road traffic accident is whiplash. This is hardly surprising when you consider the amount of vehicles on our roads (there’s over 35 million).
At UK Claim Lawyers, for example, (find us here), most claims processed are road traffic accident claims. However, UK Claim Lawyers also process a large number of accident at work claims and slips, trips and falls – and the same can be said for other law firms too.
The Factors Affecting your Eligibility to Make a Claim
If you have been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault, you have three years from the date your injuries became clear to make a claim. Or if you were a minor at the time of your accident, then you have three years from the date of your 18th birthday to make a claim.
If you are the parent or the legal guardian of somebody under the age of 18 who has been injured in an accident, then you can make a claim on their behalf as the ‘litigation friend’. To make a claim, somebody else must also be liable for it. However, you can still make a claim if you were only partly responsible for the accident. Consult a lawyer to find out more.
