Personal injury claim after a car accident: a UK practical guide

The legal framework: negligence, statutory insurance and the OIC reforms

A personal injury claim arising out of a UK road traffic accident is, at root, a civil claim in the tort of negligence. The claimant - the injured person - sues the at-fault driver and seeks damages for the injury and the financial losses that flowed from it. The substantive law on negligence draws on a long line of common-law authorities going back to Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 and Bolton v Stone [1951] AC 850. Between road users the duty of care is taken for granted; the contested questions are usually breach (did the defendant drive negligently?) and causation (did the negligence cause the injury and its consequences?).

Procedurally the claim is anchored to compulsory motor insurance under section 143 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, which makes it a criminal offence to use a vehicle on a road without a policy of insurance covering third-party risks. The implementing regime under Part VI of the Road Traffic Act 1988 - sections 145 to 153 - fleshes out what such a policy must cover and gives the injured third party direct rights against the insurer. The Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010 supplements these rights where the insured is insolvent, dissolved or otherwise unable to discharge the judgment.

The Civil Liability Act 2018 rewired the lower end of the system. Two reforms in tandem: the introduction of a statutory tariff for whiplash injuries (sections 1–4 of the 2018 Act, with figures set by the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/642) and uplifted by SI 2025/615 for accidents from 31 May 2025); and an increase in the small-claims-track injury limit from £1,000 PSLA to £5,000 PSLA. To make the new small-claims-track injury regime workable for litigants in person, the Ministry of Justice built the Official Injury Claim portal at officialinjuryclaim.org.uk. This is the route the majority of low-value RTA injury claims now follow.

How damages are calculated: general damages and special damages

Damages in a personal injury claim are split into two principal categories. General damages compensate for the injury itself - the pain, the suffering and the loss of amenity (the impact on the claimant’s enjoyment of life). They are valued at a single sum reflecting the severity and duration of the injury, with reference to the Judicial College Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases (currently in the sixteenth edition) for non-tariff injuries, and by reference to the whiplash tariff for whiplash injuries lasting up to 24 months. The compensatory principle is restitutio in integrum - the claimant is to be put back, so far as money can do it, into the position they would have been in had the wrong not been done (Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 25).

Special damages compensate for the financial losses caused by the injury. The principal heads are: loss of earnings (net, not gross); future loss of earnings where the injury continues to impair earning capacity (the multiplicand-multiplier method using Ogden Tables for the multiplier); cost of past and future treatment (private physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and, for serious injuries, surgery and rehabilitation); the cost of past and future care, gratuitous care valued at commercial rates with a 25% discount; mileage to medical appointments at the standard rate; consumable purchases such as analgesia and supports; and property damage to clothing, glasses, phones, watches and other personal items destroyed or damaged in the collision.

For seriously injured claimants there are several further heads: loss of congenial employment where the injury has forced a career change downward; handicap on the labour market (Smith v Manchester Corporation (1974) 17 KIR 1); aids and equipment; accommodation alterations and, in catastrophic cases, the cost of a fully adapted home; future deputyship costs where the Court of Protection is involved; and Roberts v Johnstone discounted costs for life expectancy reductions. None of these heads applies to a typical whiplash file but they become central in high-value injury work.

The claim process: from scene to settlement

The first 48 hours after the collision shape the file. The single most important action is a contemporaneous medical record. Even if you feel only stiff or shaken, see a GP, walk-in centre, urgent treatment centre or A&E within two days. The clinician’s note dates the symptoms to the collision, triggers the medical-record trail the insurer will later request, and rules out delayed presentations such as concussion or whiplash with delayed onset. Without this contemporaneous record the insurer will routinely argue that the symptoms are not collision-related.

Once instructed, an SRA-regulated solicitor will register the claim either on the OIC portal (for low-value injuries) or by sending a letter of claim under the pre-action protocol for personal injury (for higher-value injuries). The insurer responds within statutory timeframes - under the OIC, the compensator must respond within 30 working days of the Claim Notification Form; under the protocol, the insurer has 21 days to acknowledge and three months to admit or deny liability. A MedCo expert is instructed at the appropriate point to produce the medical report on which general damages will be valued.

After liability is admitted (or determined) and the medical evidence is in, negotiation begins. Most files settle on the papers. The insurer makes a Part 36 offer (a settlement offer carrying costs consequences under CPR Part 36); the claimant counter-offers; a settlement figure emerges. Where the parties cannot agree, court proceedings are issued - on the small claims track for PSLA below £5,000, the fast track up to about £100,000 in damages or the multi-track above that. Trial is uncommon in road traffic injury cases; the vast majority settle.

Evidence the at-fault insurer expects on a personal injury file

Liability evidence: the police accident report number where police attended (a STATS19 record is generated automatically for any injury accident attended by police); photographs of every vehicle’s final resting position, the damage, the registration plates and the road layout; dashcam footage if either party recorded the collision; witness names, addresses and contact details; the other driver’s name, address, insurer and policy number under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988; the collision date, time, weather and visibility conditions.

Injury evidence: the GP record, A&E discharge summary or walk-in note from the first 48 hours; any subsequent GP, physiotherapy and specialist appointment notes; the MedCo report (fixed-cost expert allocated through MedCo Registration Solutions for OIC portal claims); for higher-value injuries a series of medical reports from orthopaedic, neurological, neuropsychological and care experts as appropriate; treatment receipts and the medical-record trail showing the trajectory of the injury and its consequences.

Special damages evidence: payslips (13 weeks pre-accident), HR letter confirming absence and contractual sick pay terms, statutory sick pay schedule; SA302 tax calculation and tax-year overview for self-employed claimants; receipts for treatment, transport, consumables and damaged property; mileage record for medical appointments. The Compensation Recovery Unit certificate at the end of the file accounts for any state benefits (statutory sick pay, Universal Credit, employment and support allowance) that the at-fault insurer must repay to HMRC alongside the claimant’s settlement.

Contributory negligence: when the claim is reduced

The Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 allows the court to reduce a claimant’s damages where the claimant’s own fault contributed to the injury or its severity. The reduction is a percentage applied across the whole award. In road traffic accidents the typical applications are: non-use of a seat belt (15% where the belt would have prevented the injuries entirely, 25% where it would have reduced their severity - Froom v Butcher [1976] QB 286); failing to look properly when emerging from a junction (often 25-50%); a pedestrian crossing without looking (frequently 25-50% depending on the road’s character); a cyclist without lights or reflective gear at night (10-30% depending on the circumstances).

Contributory negligence is a quantum point, not a liability point. The claimant still has a viable claim - the figure is simply reduced. The defendant must plead and prove contributory negligence; the burden is on the at-fault insurer. In practice many insurers raise the point as an opening tactical position even where the evidence is thin, and a panel solicitor’s job includes negotiating the percentage down. Where the evidence is genuinely contested (was the belt being worn? Was the pedestrian looking?) the issue is for trial.

‘No win, no fee’: Conditional Fee Agreements and what they cost

The standard funding model for personal injury work in England and Wales is the Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), introduced by section 58 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 and regulated by the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013 (SI 2013/689). Under a CFA the solicitor agrees to be paid only if the claim succeeds. If it loses, the solicitor’s fees are not paid; if it wins, the solicitor is paid their base costs from the at-fault insurer (above the small claims track) and a ‘success fee’ from the client’s damages. The success fee in personal injury work is capped at 25% of damages excluding future loss heads.

In OIC portal claims (PSLA up to £5,000) inter-partes legal costs are not generally recoverable from the at-fault insurer because the small claims track does not award them. A claimant who instructs a solicitor on a CFA pays the solicitor’s fees from their damages. Some solicitors will not take OIC-portal-only files because the costs economics do not work; others take them on a percentage-of-damages model. CityGrip’s panel solicitors disclose the funding model and the deduction before any agreement is signed.

Vulnerable road users and the OIC carve-out

The OIC portal does not apply to ‘vulnerable road users’ - pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, pillion and sidecar passengers, horse riders and users of mobility scooters. For VRUs the small-claims-track injury limit remains the old £1,000 PSLA threshold, and the claim is valued conventionally by reference to the Judicial College Guidelines rather than the whiplash tariff. The structural concession reflects the higher injury risk and lower contributory-negligence exposure typically faced by these road users.

In practice this means a motorcyclist with whiplash from a rear-end shunt is valued at substantially more than a car passenger with the same injury, because the tariff does not apply. Cyclists hit by negligent drivers - see our cyclist collision claims page - and pedestrians hit by vehicles - see pedestrian hit claims - sit in this carve-out. The panel solicitor handles VRU claims under the ordinary pre-action protocol with full costs recovery from the at-fault insurer.

Future loss, Ogden tables and the multiplier-multiplicand method

Where an injury continues to impair earning capacity beyond the date of trial or settlement, the claim picks up a future loss of earnings head. The valuation method is the multiplier-multiplicand technique: the multiplicand is the annual net earnings loss; the multiplier is a discount factor derived from the Ogden Tables, the actuarial schedules published by the Government Actuary’s Department that account for the prevailing discount rate, life expectancy, retirement age and the contingencies of mortality, illness and unemployment. The multiplier is applied to the multiplicand to yield a lump sum that, invested at the discount rate, would notionally replicate the lost earnings stream over time.

The discount rate is set by the Lord Chancellor under section 1 of the Damages Act 1996. The current rate in England and Wales is +0.5% (from 11 January 2025), having moved from −0.25% under the 2019 review. The Scottish rate is set separately under the Damages (Investment Returns and Periodical Payments) (Scotland) Act 2019 and is currently +0.5% as well. A positive discount rate produces smaller lump sums for the same income loss than the prior negative rate did, because investment returns are now assumed to outpace inflation modestly. Claimants whose injuries pre-date the latest rate change still benefit from the rate in force at the date of trial.

Where the injury accelerates retirement, eliminates promotion prospects or moves the claimant into less remunerative work, the Smith v Manchester Corporation (1974) 17 KIR 1 award addresses the residual handicap on the labour market. Smith awards are conventionally valued at one to two years of net earnings, depending on the severity of the handicap and the claimant’s age, and are awarded in addition to the multiplier-multiplicand future loss figure where appropriate. For catastrophically injured claimants the heads compound: future loss of earnings, future care, future treatment, accommodation alterations, aids and equipment and Court of Protection deputyship costs can together produce settlements in the high six figures or seven figures.

CityGrip’s role: support service, panel solicitor for the legal work

CityGrip is a UK accident claim management business. Our work is the property-damage side of a non-fault file - coordinating recovery from the scene, secure storage of the vehicle, an independent engineer’s inspection, repair management at an accredited bodyshop, like-for-like replacement vehicle eligibility and direct dialogue with the at-fault driver’s insurer to recover those heads. This work is not regulated personal injury practice and does not require FCA authorisation under the regulated claims management activity regime.

For personal injury and any element that requires legal advice we introduce you to an SRA-regulated panel solicitor on the basis described above: only with your explicit and recorded consent; on disclosed referral terms; after you have been told who the firm is, what the referral arrangement is and what (if any) deduction will be made from your compensation. You retain the right to choose your own solicitor and you can decline the introduction. See our injury claim referral page for full detail. Related guides: whiplash compensation, accident claim time limit, no win no fee accident claim, how to claim after a car accident, who pays for what.