If you’ve suffered whiplash from a car accident, we can tell you how much compensation you may receive.
Compensation is there to get you back to the same position you were in before an accident so there is an amount of money awarded by the courts depending on how serious the whiplash injury was, and also to cover any out of pocket expenses.
A Guide To Whiplash Compensation Claim Amounts
We can help you recover thousands of pounds of compensation that you are legally entitled to if you’ve suffered whiplash in an accident that wasn’t your fault.
Bott and Co are trusted and regulated solicitors successfully recovering millions of pounds for over 40,000 injured victims for more than a decade, winning a staggering 99% of all our cases.
We have a specialist team of solicitors dealing almost exclusively with whiplash compensation and similar injuries.
In addition our LVI (low velocity impact) team handle claims where genuine injuries have been caused by low speed collisions where insurance usually fight claims against them as a matter of course often with unfounded allegations of fraud.
We’ve put together a simple, easy to read guide to help you understand in simple terms what you may be entitled to should you suffer from a whiplash injury.
What Is A Whiplash Injury?
Whiplash symptoms can vary from person to person depending on the precise circumstances in which the injury occurred. Most common whiplash symptoms include headaches, neck pain, opera or lower back pain, dizziness, difficulty sleeping, and even pain or discomfort in the arms and legs.
Mr P received an offer of £3,300 from the insurers for his whiplash injury, but Bott and Co were able to secure over £5000, a 51% increase.
The symptoms can come on very quickly or they may take a few days to develop following an accident.
What Compensation Can I Claim For?
Whiplash compensation amounts are broken down into two areas. General damages are calculated based on the seriousness of the injury and the effect it may have on your life. Special damages cover your out of pocket expenses. The total of both of these amounts makes up your total compensation amount.
General damage amounts are determined by the Judicial Studies Board (JSB) guidelines. Special damages amounts are made up of out of pocket expenses such as;
- Travel expenses.
- Hospital visits and parking.
- Loss of earnings or bonus.
- Cost of any treatment for prescriptions.
- Additional household costs.
- Help or care while you are recovering
There may also be other costs you incurred as a result of your whiplash injury that we can recover from the other side.
Because of the wide range of compensation for whiplash injuries depending on the severity, and for the additional costs involved, it is our job to negotiate with the insurers on your behalf to get the best offer of settlement.
Average Claim Amount For Whiplash
Most whiplash injuries where there is mild discomfort or headaches, can last just a few days or weeks. These cases can settle on average for between £1,000 to £2,750 while severe whiplash with on-going symptoms and damage to the spine can entitle you to as much as £97,500.
For more serious injuries the amounts are considerably higher. In 2010 Mr. P was offered £3,300 by the insurers for whiplash related injuries. However with our highly skilled solicitors on the case we won £5,000 to cover the injuries and ongoing support for Mr. P
Calculate how much you could claim
Should I Claim For Whiplash?
We all pay car insurance to cover the times that we need financial help for injuries and other out of pocket costs incurred as a result of an accident on the road. You shouldn’t feel bad or awkward about claiming what the law says is rightfully yours, despite what insurers and the media want you to believe.
Nor should you be reluctant to use an experienced law firm such as Bott and Co to handle your claim. Insurance companies regularly try and ‘under settle’ claims against them. This means they will offer you less money than your injury may have been independently valued at (see table below) or they will try and settle before your injuries have healed.
The Claims Process
If you think you have whiplash or related injuries after being in a car accident even if it’s a mild whiplash, the law says you are entitled to financial compensation because of the pain and suffering you have experienced.
Contact us today to start the claim process with one of our lawyers and we will assess your claim and give you an indication of what amount of compensation you can expect to receive.
As a top 200 law firm and one of the very best personal injury specialists in the UK, we make the claims process easy for you. We are bound by strict regulation through the SRA unlike claims management companies, and you benefit from full solicitor-client confidentiality. We don’t pass your details on to any other company and our only concern is to make sure you receive the best offer from the other side.
You will deal with one lawyer throughout your claim and they will present your claim to the third party insurers after spending time with you going through the details of the accident, injury suffered, and costs you’ve incurred.
They will assess the relevant medical records and seek expert medical advice and your particular injuries. If necessary they will prepare and issue court proceedings on your behalf and we will instruct barristers to represent your case in court. It is unlikely that the case will get that far as most settle out of court but we have the very best resources available if needed to fight your case all the way.
A No Win No Fee Service
We always offer you a no win no fee service for any whiplash claim. No win no fee is also known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) and this means we agree to work for you on the basis that we won’t charge any fees if in the rare instances the claim is not successful.
This means you have no financial risk to making a claim and it enables us to help you receive justice. We also purchase an After The Event (ATE) insurance on your behalf to cover any legal costs should you not win the case. However, if you have an existing legal expenses insurance policy such as one included in your car insurance, then you won’t need an ATE policy. Whatever your particular circumstances, we will advise you on how to protect yourself against any costs and how we will recover the best possible compensation amounts from the other side.
Throughout this process you have no financial risk as we cover all upfront costs and if the case does go to court we recover the costs from the other party. We win 99% of all our cases but in the small chance we were unsuccessful, our no-win no-fee guarantee protects you from any costs.
We help people like you every day get back on the road to recovery after suffering whiplash injuries. Whether it’s a mild whiplash or something that takes years to heal our experts solicitors know how to value your claim to get the best offer from the insurers and we make sure our claims process is quick, so you can be paid in as little as a couple of months.
How Much Compensation Can I Claim For Whiplash?
| Part Of Body | Level Of Injury | Amount Of Compensation | Type of Injury |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head | Very serious | £214,300 – £307,000 | Badly disabled, brain damage with little or no response. Includes people in vegetative state in need of full time nursing. Learn More |
| Head | Serious | £11,600 – £214,300 | Serious physical symptoms or a significant change to your intellect or personality Learn More |
| Head | Moderate | £1,600 – £9,700 | Head injury not resulting in brain damage, amounts dependent to on-going symptoms such as headaches Learn More |
| Eyes | Very serious | £80,500 – £204,200 | Amounts relate to completely blind, or blinded in one eye and/ or severely reduced vision in other. Learn More |
| Eyes | Serious | £6,900 – £50,000 | Loss of eye, lost sight in one eye or suffered some but not total visual impairment Learn More |
| Eyes | Moderate | £1,650 – £6,700 | Injury to eye that caused pain, or temporary vision issues Learn More |
| Ears | Very serious | £68,950 – £107,500 | Injury leading to complete deafness. If injured as child, higher compensation based on lose of ability to speak. Learn More |
| Ears | Serious | £23,850 – £34,650 | Loss of total hearing in one ear, amounts dependent on additional symptoms such as dizziness Learn More |
| Ears | Moderate | £5,300 – £34,650 | Compensation amount apply for those suffering from partial hearing loss to mild or sever tinnitus Learn More |
| Face | Very serious | £13,700 – £74,500 | Facial disfigurement or scarring, amounts depending on how seriously affected. Men could receive less for facial disfigurement than women with same injury.Learn More |
| Face | Serious | £1,770 – £28,950 | Facial fractures such as broken jaw or nose. Amounts dependent on severity. Also apply to broken, damaged teeth. Learn More |
| Face | Moderate | £1,290 – £2,670 | Facial injury that didn’t include broken bones and left only very light or no scarring. Learn More |
Compensation Amounts For Injuries To The Upper Body
| Area | Level | Compensation | Injury |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neck | Very serious | £34,570 to £112,800 | Neck injuries that seriously affect movement of one or more limbs or little or no ability to move their neck years after accident. Learn More |
| Neck | Serious | £29,300 to £42,500 | Fractures and dislocations that require surgery. Amounts may apply to those who suffer with permanent pain, discomfort that limits usual activities. Learn More |
| Neck | Moderate | £1,850 to £6,050 | Soft tissue or whiplash injury but have recovered within two years of incident. Amounts vary on severity of injury, level of pain and effect on restriction of ability to take part in your usual activities. Learn More |
| Back | Very serious | £29,450 to £122,300 | Back injury that would usually require surgery such as damaged spinal cord leading to serious consequences such as partial paralysis, loss of bowel/bladder function and psychological issues. Learn More |
| Back | Serious | £9,450 to £29,500 | Back injury that has left you in constant pain or discomfort often due to disturbed ligaments or soft tissue injuries. Amount based on severity of original injury and treatment you may need. Learn More |
| Back | Moderate | £300 to £9,450 | Injuries leading to less serious strains, disc problems and soft tissue damage. Amounts relate to severely of original injury, treatment required and long term effects. Learn More |
| Shoulder | Very serious | £9,750 to £36,450 | These amounts are usually associated with neck injuries resulting in significant disability. Learn More |
| Shoulder | Serious | £6,050 to £9,750 | Compensation could apply for injury causing ‘frozen shoulder’, or soft tissue damage causing pain and discomfort lasting around two years. Learn More |
| Shoulder | Moderate | £300 to £6,050 | Suffered pain from a soft tissue injury lasting a few months to two years, but have eventually had a full recovery, you could be entitled to this amount. Learn More |
| Pelvis & Hips | Very serious | £29,800 to £99,550 | Severe hip or pelvis fractures that have led to bowel damage or have required a spinal fusion. Amounts depend on long-term effects (such as impotence or complications with child-birth) and likelihood to have to have more surgery in the future. Learn More |
| Pelvis & Hips | Serious | £9,550 to £29,850 | Injury that required a hip operation / replacement (or may lead to you requiring one in the future), but are unlikely to suffer from any serious disability as a result. Learn More |
| Pelvis & Hips | Moderate | £3,000 to £9,580 | Hip or pelvic injury, but have completely (or almost completely) recovered within two years of the incident, you could be entitled to this amount. Learn More |
The figures are taken from the Case Law on general damages in personal injury cases. Amounts may change without notice and figures should not be considered as exact.
Although the compensation amounts in this guide may seem relatively low – they are only the amounts that are awarded for the injuries themselves.
For serious injuries, we also recover compensation to cover additional costs that arise as a result of your accident, including; loss of future earnings, a lifetime of care and treatment, help with chores, medication, state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs and custom built accommodation. Depending on the seriousness of the injury, this can lead to you being awarded up to millions of pounds.
Sanita Gillespie
A Member of APIL and ILEX, Sanita has over 11 years experience in road traffic accident claims.
In addition to her legal expertise, Sanita takes a particular interest in client care, believing that the claiming process for her clients should be as stress free as possible.