The UK accident claim process: how claims actually work

The architecture of a UK accident claim

An accident claim begins with a collision and ends with money changing hands. Between the two, three actors are usually involved: the claimant (the injured / damaged party), the defendant (the at-fault driver), and the defendant’s motor insurer who responds under the statutory third-party cover required by section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The claimant’s own insurer may be in the picture (notified for information, sometimes subrogating after paying out under comprehensive cover) but they are not the primary paying party on a non-fault file.

The claim itself is split into heads of loss. On the property-damage side: recovery of the vehicle from the scene, secure storage, repair to PAS 125 / BS 10125 standard at an accredited bodyshop, engineer’s inspection to establish repair scope or total loss, like-for-like replacement vehicle under Lagden v O’Connor [2003] UKHL 64, diminished value in some cases, excess refund and policy fees, and consequential losses (taxi fares, public transport, missed bookings). On the personal injury side: general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity (tariff-capped for whiplash, judicially valued for other injuries), special damages for financial loss (earnings, treatment, care, mileage, property damage), and future loss elements for serious injury.

Each head of loss has its own evidence requirements, its own procedural route and its own settlement timing. The property-damage track typically resolves in 3-6 months once liability is clear. The personal injury track is slower - 4-9 months on the OIC portal, 12-18 months on the pre-action protocol, longer for catastrophic injury. The two tracks share evidence (the police report, the engineer’s findings on impact mechanics, witness statements) but settle separately. The at-fault insurer often offers a property-damage settlement long before the personal injury claim is ready to discuss.

The pre-action protocols and the letter of claim

The Civil Procedure Rules attach pre-action protocols to most civil claim types. For road traffic accidents in England and Wales the two principal protocols are the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims and the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents. Each sets out what the claimant must do before issuing proceedings: send a letter of claim with specified content, give the defendant time to respond, attempt to agree a single joint expert where appropriate, and exchange documents in a structured way. Non-compliance can lead to costs sanctions.

The letter of claim must identify the parties, the accident date, the substance of the allegations of negligence, the injuries sustained (and the documentary evidence supporting them), the financial losses claimed and the basis on which they are calculated. The defendant’s insurer has 21 days to acknowledge receipt and a further three months to investigate and respond on liability. If liability is admitted, the case moves to quantum negotiation; if denied, the claimant decides whether to issue proceedings (often after further evidence-gathering).

The Low Value RTA Pre-Action Protocol (and its associated Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 process) was the predecessor to the OIC portal for low-value claims and continues to apply to RTA claims that fall outside the post-2018 OIC scope. The pre-action protocols are designed to encourage settlement, narrow the issues and prevent surprise - courts treat non-compliance harshly because the protocols are central to the system’s ability to handle volume claims without overwhelming the courts.

The OIC portal and the Civil Liability Act 2018 reforms

The Civil Liability Act 2018 reformed the low end of the personal injury claims market with two related measures: a statutory whiplash tariff (Part 1) and an increase in the RTA small-claims-track injury limit from £1,000 to £5,000 PSLA (Part 2). To make the new small-claims-track regime workable for litigants in person, the Ministry of Justice and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau jointly built the Official Injury Claim portal at officialinjuryclaim.org.uk. The portal went live on 31 May 2021.

The portal handles RTA personal injury claims with PSLA up to £5,000 and total claim value up to £25,000 (PSLA plus special damages). It is designed for unrepresented claimants but solicitors may use it. The workflow is: Claim Notification Form → MedCo medical examination → medical report → compensator response → offer-and-acceptance. The MedCo expert is allocated randomly through MedCo Registration Solutions to prevent prior-relationship cartelisation. The portal’s timelines are strict and the at-fault insurer (the ‘compensator’) must respond at each step within defined working-day windows.

Vulnerable road users - pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, pillion and sidecar passengers, horse riders and users of mobility scooters - are excluded from OIC portal jurisdiction. Their RTA personal injury claims retain the £1,000 small-claims-track limit and are valued conventionally by reference to the Judicial College Guidelines rather than the whiplash tariff. The carve-out reflects the structurally higher injury risk these road users face and was a concession during the Civil Liability Bill’s passage through Parliament.

Court tracks and the allocation decision

Once proceedings are issued, the court allocates the claim to one of four tracks under CPR Part 26: small claims, fast track, intermediate track or multi-track. The small claims track handles claims up to £10,000 in total damages (with the £5,000 PSLA / £1,000 VRU sub-limits on injury). Costs are not recoverable inter-partes on the small claims track - a claimant who instructs a solicitor pays them from damages. The fast track handles claims up to about £25,000 with fixed costs and a one-day trial estimate. The intermediate track (introduced 1 October 2023) handles claims up to £100,000 with fixed costs and structured case management. The multi-track handles claims above £100,000 or claims with significant complexity, with case management and bespoke directions.

Track allocation determines the procedure (intensity of case management, length of trial, expert evidence permitted), the cost rules (fixed costs on fast and intermediate, summary assessment on small claims, detailed assessment on multi-track) and the level of judicial attention. Claimants and defendants both have an interest in the allocation: defendants tend to push toward lower tracks (less cost exposure); claimants tend to push toward higher tracks where cost recovery improves the economics. The allocation is on the court’s own motion under CPR 26.6 and reflects an assessment of the claim’s value, complexity and importance to the parties.

Part 36 and the economics of settlement

CPR Part 36 is the central settlement mechanism of English civil litigation. A Part 36 offer is a formal written settlement proposal carrying automatic costs consequences if not beaten at trial. The offer has a relevant period of at least 21 days during which standard costs consequences apply; after the relevant period the consequences harden. Part 36 applies on all tracks but has the greatest impact on fast and multi-track claims where costs are substantial.

If a claimant rejects a defendant’s Part 36 offer and the trial award is no better than the offer, the claimant pays the defendant’s costs from the end of the relevant period to the date of judgment. On personal injury claims this exposure is capped by Qualified One-Way Costs Shifting (CPR 44.13-17) at the level of damages awarded, so a successful-but-undervalued claimant still nets the damages but pays the defendant’s costs out of them. If a defendant rejects a claimant’s Part 36 offer and the trial award equals or exceeds it, the defendant pays enhanced costs on the indemnity basis, interest on damages and costs at up to 10% above base rate and a 10% additional sum on damages (capped at £75,000). The asymmetric incentives drive settlement.

In practice, Part 36 offers and counter-offers shape the negotiation throughout the life of a contested claim. A panel solicitor’s skill is largely the skill of running the Part 36 chess game well - knowing when to make an offer, when to counter, what level to pitch and when to walk away from a stale negotiation toward issued proceedings.

Contested liability and contributory negligence

Liability is contested in a minority of road traffic accident claims but the cases where it is contested are the ones that take longest to resolve. Disputes typically turn on the operative cause of the collision (whose action was the more proximate cause of the impact?), the application of the Highway Code (admissible under section 38(7) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 as evidence of breach of duty), the credibility of witness evidence and the technical reconstruction of impact dynamics by accident reconstruction experts.

Contributory negligence under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 reduces the claimant’s award by a percentage reflecting their own fault. Common applications: non-belted passenger 15-25% (Froom v Butcher [1976] QB 286), pulling out of a junction without looking 25-50%, pedestrian crossing without looking 25-50%, cyclist riding at night without lights 10-30%. The defendant carries the burden of pleading and proving contributory negligence; many insurers raise it as a tactical opening position and the panel solicitor’s job is to negotiate the percentage down where the evidence does not support it.

Scotland: a separate jurisdiction and process

Scotland’s civil procedure differs in important respects. The Sheriff Personal Injury Court at Edinburgh, established under the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, handles most road traffic personal injury claims with damages up to £100,000. Higher-value claims and the most complex cases go to the Court of Session, the Scottish equivalent of the High Court. There is no OIC portal equivalent - Scottish RTA injury claims are pursued through ordinary court procedure with judicial valuation of damages and full legal-costs recovery on success.

Limitation is governed by the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973. Personal injury actions have a three-year limitation period under section 17, running from the pursuer’s date of awareness of the injuries, the cause and the identity of the defender. Property damage falls under the five-year long negative prescription under section 6, not six years as in England. Cross-border claims are governed by the law of the place where the accident occurred under retained Rome II rules.

Procedurally Scotland operates under the Court of Session Rules of the Court 1994 and the Ordinary Cause Rules in the sheriff courts. The case management approach is less prescriptive than the English CPR in some respects (no equivalent of strict CPR Part 35 sanctions for expert non-compliance, for example) and more so in others (the proof on commission process is heavier). The substantive law of negligence is functionally identical to English law but key cases (Hunter v Hanley 1955 SC 200 on standard of care, McTear v Imperial Tobacco 2005 SC 1 on causation) are sometimes pleaded in Scottish-tinged terms.

Disclosure, witness statements and expert evidence under CPR Parts 31-35

Once a claim is issued and allocated to the fast or multi-track, the court imposes a procedural timetable that drives the case toward trial in defined stages. Disclosure under CPR Part 31 requires each party to identify and produce documents relevant to the issues, with a standard or specific disclosure order setting the scope. ‘Documents’ for CPR purposes includes electronic records, photographs, video footage and audio recordings - modern road traffic disclosure routinely includes dashcam footage, smartphone photos, social media posts and (for serious-injury claimants) extensive medical records.

Witness statements under CPR Part 32 are exchanged ahead of trial, usually 14-28 days after disclosure depending on track. The statement must be a verbatim account in the witness’s own words and must comply with CPR 32 Practice Direction’s formal requirements (statement of truth, name and address, signature). Statements failing to comply can be struck out. The trend over the past decade has been toward stricter compliance - courts now routinely refuse to admit defective statements and require redrafting at the offending party’s cost.

Expert evidence under CPR Part 35 is the most rigorously controlled part of the procedure. An expert may only give evidence with the court’s permission and must comply with the duty in CPR 35.3 to assist the court rather than to advocate for the party that instructed them. Single joint experts are encouraged on routine technical issues; party-instructed experts are permitted where the issues justify them. The Part 35 Practice Direction sets out the form of the expert’s report and the requirements for answering written questions. Failure to comply can lead to the evidence being struck out or the expert being barred from giving oral evidence at trial.

Trial, judgment and enforcement: the rare endgame

Trial is rare in personal injury work. The procedural and costs architecture pushes settlement at every stage, and the vast majority of issued claims resolve without a hearing. Where trial does occur, it is usually short - a half-day or full day on the small claims track, one day on the fast track, two to five days on the multi-track for typical PI files, longer for complex catastrophic injury cases with multiple experts. Trial venues are the County Court for fast-track claims, the County Court multi-track judge or specialist judge for multi-track, and the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) for the most serious cases.

The judgment crystallises the parties’ legal positions. Damages are assessed under the heads of loss already discussed, with the court reviewing the evidence and applying the established legal framework. Where the claimant succeeds, the court orders payment plus interest under section 35A of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (or section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984) at the discretionary rate set by the court - typically 2% on general damages from the date of service of the claim form, and the applicable special account rate on special damages from the date the loss accrued. Costs follow the event subject to the Part 36 modifications already discussed.

Enforcement is rarely needed because most defendants are insurers and pay automatically. Where the defendant is the MIB (on an uninsured driver file) or an overseas defendant, enforcement steps may be required. The High Court Enforcement Officer process under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 is the standard mechanism for cross-border enforcement; the Brussels I (Recast) Regulation provisions retained in UK law govern recognition and enforcement against EU defendants. International enforcement against non-EU defendants depends on the bilateral treaty position with the relevant jurisdiction.

CityGrip’s place in the process

CityGrip operates exclusively on the property-damage side of a non-fault accident claim. Our service is UK accident claim management: recovery from the scene, secure storage, engineer inspection, repair management at PAS 125 / BS 10125 accredited bodyshops, like-for-like replacement vehicle eligibility under Lagden v O’Connor and direct dialogue with the at-fault insurer to recover those heads of loss. None of this is regulated personal injury practice and none of it requires FCA authorisation under the regulated claims management activity regime.

For personal injury and any element that requires legal advice - including whiplash compensation, liability negotiation, Part 36 offer strategy and the conduct of the OIC portal or pre-action protocol claim - we introduce you, with your explicit consent and on disclosed referral terms, to an SRA-regulated panel solicitor. The introduction is optional, the firm’s identity is disclosed, the referral arrangement is explained and the typical deductions from settlement are set out before any retainer is signed. Related guides: how to claim after a car accident, personal injury claim car accident, whiplash compensation, no win no fee, who pays for what, injury claim referral.