Insurers try to under settle personal injury claim

Linda was leaving a restaurant in Dunfermline when she has tripped over a breeze block, which had been left to weigh down some signage.

Following the accident, the restaurant insurer’s made an initial offer to settle the case without having obtained any medical evidence. 

Digby Brown’s commitment to obtaining full medical evidence in cases meant our Kirkcaldy team were able to get Linda full and fair compensation for the effects of her injuries on her life and work.

“The pain ruled my life. I’m a nurse and I’ve never been one to take painkillers but I was clock watching for when it was time to take more. I’ve never experienced pain like that before in my life.

“The accident had an impact on everything. I’ve not been off work for 10 years but I couldn’t work for over 2 months which upset me - and even then I returned early on restricted duties.

“Not able to do the day to day things as well was hard for me as I’m so independent but I had to rely on others which got me down a bit.”

Restaurant complaint led insurers to offer £5,000 – without medical evidence

“To be quite honest, we weren’t looking for anything at all. We made a complaint to make sure it didn’t happen to anyone else as 11 days later the breeze block was still there. Then we got an email offering us £5,000.

“At that point I was still getting a lot of problems with my wrist and I wanted to see how my injuries progressed. I went back to the GP and she referred me to a hand surgeon.”

Insurers increase compensation offer to £8,000

When Linda turned down the first offer, the insurers came back with an offer of £8,000. However, as Linda was off work she was obliged to pay back the sick pay she received. This meant that she would have been left with only about £3,300 in compensation - and less than £300 if she had accepted the first offer.

“We were surprised when the insurers came back with an offer for £8,000. It was a lot of money but I wanted to find out what was wrong with my wrist first.  My main concern was about getting the proper care and treatment – not the money.

“We also didn’t realise at first that the sick pay would need to be paid back from the compensation we received.

“Since we both hadn’t been through anything like this before and didn’t know what we were doing we decided to get further advice as we didn’t want to do anything wrong.”

Linda came to see Digby Brown at a legal advice clinic to discuss what happened.

Right people for personal injury claim

Our solicitors in Kirkcaldy arranged private physiotherapy to help Linda with her recovery and they gathered full medical evidence to investigate the extent of her injuries and the life-long impact.

“It was reassuring seeing a hand specialist as I was worried that it wouldn’t get any better and they arranged physio privately which really helped.

“The support from Digby Brown was great – someone there that we could turn to for advice at a very stressful time for us. I was very impressed with the way everybody at Digby Brown kept us informed of what was going on throughout the case.

At the beginning I was very anxious about making a claim and unsure of whether we should but they were excellent and would just call to find out how you were– it was great.”

48 times more compensation with personal injury solicitors

Our personal injury solicitors in Kirkcaldy raised the claim in court as the insurers made no further offers.

Our team applied the relevant pressure on the insurers and received an offer of £10,000 but this was rejected by our client after listening to our advice.

Then, 6 weeks before the claim was due to be heard in court, they doubled their offer to £20,000.

Even with sick pay being deducted, Linda was left with over £14,500 in damages - which is around 48 times what she would have been left with if she had accepted the insurers’ first offer.

“The legal advice from Digby Brown was absolutely excellent. I wouldn’t want to go through what we did but at least the compensation has made life a lot easier.

“I would highly recommend Digby Brown to anyone.”