What Can I Claim For Following A Road Traffic Accident?
Personal injuries aside, a road traffic accident will most likely cause you to suffer other losses.
These could be losses from the accident itself, such as damage to your vehicle, your clothing, or the vehicle’s contents. Or what if you happen to be towing a trailer? A road traffic accident will almost certainly cause damage to your trailer and the load it is carrying.
Pre-Accident Value
It is important that you can place a pre-accident value on the damaged items. For clothing or smaller contents, it is enough to produce receipts or credit card statements as proof of value. Your vehicle, trailer and pieces of plant machinery will be subject to an assessor’s valuation. This will establish the value of the vehicle on the day the accident took place. This is what is known as the “Pre-Accident Value” and this is the figure that we will strive to have insurance company pay to you. Remember their duty of care is to compensate you back to the position you were in before the accident took place.
Injuries and Vehicle Damage
Further losses may arise in the aftermath of the accident because of your injuries and vehicle damage. The agreed convention is that any losses can be included in your claim provided they were caused by the accident or were a repercussion of a loss suffered in the accident. These can include:
Vehicle/machinery recovery from the scene of the accident
Vehicle/machinery storage following an accident
Vehicle/machinery hire
Travel expenses – for journeys made as a result of the accident.
Medical expenses and treatment costs – you incurred in treating your injuries or helping to ease your symptoms e.g. private physiotherapy or CBT treatment.
Loss of earnings – you incurred as a result of being unable to work as normal.
Loss of amenity/recreative – e.g. fees paid to take part in an event that you are no longer able to partake in.
Business interruption claim.
Future Losses
In some circumstances you may be able to include future losses in your claim. This applies to losses you anticipate will happen in the future but which you have not actually experienced yet. As with the aforesaid losses, they must be supported with evidence and you must also prove that they will be incurred because of the accident and/or your injuries.
Contact P.A.Duffy & Co Solicitors
If you are involved in a road traffic accident, it is imperative that you act quickly and contact your solicitor. The sooner your solicitor is involved, the greater your chances of success. At P.A.Duffy & Co Solicitors we have helped numerous clients recover high value vehicle, machinery and various miscellaneous claims against an at-fault third party.