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Car accident, claiming expenses after any accident, whether in a car or any other form of accident that was not your fault
Expenses begin immediately or rather the expenses of the person who comes to your aid from your family. Their first mobile phone call. Their first cab fare. Their first bus ride. The urgent takeaway for the children their grandmother bought for your children after collecting them from school in a minicab which she had to pay for. Their meals in the hospital waiting for news after urgent operations. All these are expenses that are claimable.
Quite rightly the issue of proving what you spent will be the furthest from their minds, but hopefully you will recall what they cost. As soon as you realise that these expenses might come back to you get a notebook and write the figures down.
These first few days will be a nightmare and few solicitors will argue with the small amounts of money that you spent in these first few days. When it comes to noting small and frivolous expenses months and years later these figures may show you to be a money grabbing individual and may prejudice your claim. The only real answer is to keep the records and wait for the advice at the point of settlement or trial.
Your damaged clothing should be retained, at least in the short term after all they cost money and either will need to be replaced or compensated for.
The biggest expense will be the damage to your vehicle. Your first port of call will be to recover your losses in accordance with your insurance certificate. In the case of you only having third party liability your losses may not be insured. In these circumstances these should be claimed for. There is a principle in law that states that if you are insured your losses are recoverable on top of what the insurance company pay you out. This is because you pay a premium to be insured. It never seems to work with motor insurance though as I suppose no-one checks it out. Check it out it may be worth a few thousand pounds to you.
The overwhelming advice that any legally trained person will tell you when dealing with expenses and spending money that you want back from an insurance claim is to Keep Receipts. Moreover these should be signed receipts on proper company headed notepaper if at all possible.
Receipts are evidence that you have bought the goods or services that were necessary because of the accident. This practice will become crucial and second nature eventually when you come to deal with reports made by experts and especially when putting their recommendations into effect. Try claiming for a new car without proving that you actually bought it and had it adapted without a receipt.
As your civil case progresses you will increasingly start to realise that the nature of the quality of evidence that will be presented to the judge will have to come from you and your immediate family especially when it comes to justifying the necessity for buying something you need.
So, you will need the Equipment to record the evidence to present to the lawyers experts and to the court.
Claiming expenses and collecting the evidence after an accident
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