Had an accident? You don’t have to use the solicitor your insurer recommends
When you’re involved in an accident, your first priority will usually be to make sure that your injuries are treated. Your next priority, if it’s a road accident, will probably be to report the accident to your insurance company. They may even contact you first, and before you’ve even had time to think about making a claim!
Your motor insurer or your legal expenses insurer will put their own solicitors in touch with you as soon as possible, to secure you as a client for the purposes of making a claim where the accident isn’t your fault. The insurance company’s motivation in recommending their own solicitors may be financial rather than to ensure you get the best possible service. It is important to realise that you have a choice. You do not have to accept the insurer’s solicitor.
Solicitors appointed by your insurer are often a long way away from you and so any dealings with them will be over the phone or via the post or email. Being put in touch with a solicitor may seem beneficial and will save you having to find one yourself, but you may find the service impersonal and those solicitors are unlikely to have any local knowledge, something that can be very important, particularly in a road accident claim.
Your insurance company will often make it sound beneficial for you to use their preferred solicitors to handle your claim for compensation but you don’t have to!
The advantages of instructing a local solicitor are that you can assess the quality and expertise of the lawyer representing you, they will have local knowledge, and they can even visit you at home or in hospital if your injuries are severe. Often, the process of making a personal injury claim is not a chance to make a quick bit of money, but a necessity to try and rebuild a life for the victim or the victim’s family. Choosing the right solicitor is crucial.
We at Wolferstans have a local reputation to maintain and are focused on doing a good job so that you will come back to us or recommend us in the future. We only employ specialist solicitors who have manageable case loads so that your file doesn’t sit at the bottom of a huge pile, and we won’t encourage you to accept an offer of compensation in order to meet any target. The benefit of a local solicitor is that you can also have face to face discussions when there are important developments in your case or you just want some reassurance.
We offer no risk funding arrangements so that, if you lose your case, it costs you nothing. Even if you already have a claim being handled by your insurer’s solicitor, you might still be able to switch to us if you have any doubts about them. Why not give us a call so that one of our friendly staff can advise you on the benefits of transferring your case to us.