Over a million people in the UK alone have an accident at work each year. Many are minor incidents but some can be more serious. Therefore it’s important to know how to make an injury claim for an accident at work.
Types of accidents at work
All employers have a legal responsibility to ensure that all employees are able to work in a safe and secure working environment that minimises any risk of injury. However, accidents do happen and you could have an accident at work through no fault of your own. It will come as no surprise to hear that the largest percentage of types of accidents at work are those which occur on construction sites, but people in offices also have accidents such as slipping on a wet floor that isn’t properly signalled or tripping over exposed cables.
In addition to accidents such as the ones above, a number of accidents at work also occur due to a lack of training. Again, it is your employer’s responsibility to ensure that you have received the appropriate training to be able to carry out your job safely. Therefore, if you are on a construction site using a new drill that you haven’t been trained to use and have an accident as a result, you could well make an injury claim. The same goes in an office if you are asked to do some heavy lifting which causes you to strain your back as you weren’t properly taught how to lift the items. Ultimately, if you have an accident that wasn’t your fault, you could have valid grounds to claim.
Making a claim for an accident at work
Making a claim for an accident at work is no different than making a claim for any other type of accident. The first step in the injury claims process is to seek the advice of a personal injury solicitor who could manage the claim. Many solicitors off free consultations so be sure to take advantage of this and meet with a number of potential solicitors to get their opinions on your claim. Making a claim is much like selling a house in that as you would get valuations from a number of different estate agents, you talk to a number of different solicitors before deciding who the best person to manage your claim is. Featured below are a few things you need to know when searching for a personal injury solicitor:
- How much court experience do they have? – Believe it or not, many solicitors have never been to court as most claims are settled before it goes that far. However, its best to find a solicitor who has court experience, just in case.
- Have they handled similar cases before? – If you can find a solicitor who has successfully handled a similar case before you can rest assured that they will know the best course of action to take.
- How much compensation do they think the claim is worth? – Each solicitor will have a different valuation of your claim. Compare and contrast as to how much different solicitors think you could be entitled to.
- How much do they charge? – You don’t want any nasty surprises. Find out how much they charge and if they operate on a no win no fee basis.
Once you have hired a solicitor and decide to press on with the claim, they will make contact with the other side and start the process to get you the compensation you deserve.
Injury Claim Specialists is one of the UK’s leading personal injury advice websites. We pride ourselves on offering easy to understand, plain English injury claims advice on a wide range of different injury related topics. There are also a number of extremely useful tools such as the Compensation Calculator, which can give you a compensation estimate in less than a second, and the Injury Claims Guide is at hand to answer all of your personal injury related questions.
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