This is the second post in a series on making Motor Vehicle Accident Claims. If you haven’t yet, read about The First Steps to make a claim for your injuries here first.
So, you’ve been in a collision on a road in the Australian Capital Territory and sustained injury. Obviously you want to ensure a successful claim for car crash injuries so you’ve taken the first steps: you have spoken to your doctor; you’ve reported the accident to police, and been in touch with your lawyers. But what happens next?
Accident Reported to Police. What Comes Next?
You’ve spoken with your lawyers at United Legal. We’ve discussed your car accident and you’ve decided you want to make a claim for compensation for your injuries. What do you need to do now? What will we be doing for you?
In this post we’ll answer those questions for you and use one of our previous claims as a real-life step-by-step example for you.
Making Compensation Claim for Motor Vehicle Accident Injuries.
One of the first things we do as solicitors for your car accident compensation claim is to lodge your paperwork with the insurance company.
The law requires us to lodge two forms.
The first is the Notice of Claim Form (NOC), and the second is the Motor Accident Notification Form/Motor Accident Medical Report (MANF/MAMR). You can check out a copy of these forms yourself on the ACT Treasury Webpage here. Keep in mind that the MAMR needs to be completed by your General Practitioner (GP).
We’ll go through the other forms with you, help you identify everything you need to include, and help you find the right words to make your claim as clear and compelling as possible.
For our example, we’ll be sharing the story of Julius*. Julius had finished at work for the day and had gone to his local shops to collect some things for dinner and some beer. As he was heading home, another car ran through a red light into the passenger-side of his vehicle. The impact ripped off the front-end of Julius’ car and led to the untimely demise of a yet-to-be-opened six-pack of Stone & Wood’s Pacific Ale.
That night, Julius completed an online crash report. The next day he saw his GP and got in touch with United Legal to complete his claim forms. We submitted Julius’ paperwork, and the week after that he was approved for fully funded physiotherapy treatment and started getting some of his out-of-pocket expenses reimbursed.
Start Preparing Evidence for your Car Accident Compensation Case
Depending on the nature of your claim, there’s a whole range of evidence we might need to collect and prepare for you. If you’ve lost income as a result of the accident, we’ll collect and catalogue copies of your tax documents and payslips. For any medical treatment, we’ll need to get copies of your clinical file. When necessary, we’ll take statements from people who saw the accident or who can vouch for how the accident has affected you. We’ll also eventually arrange assessments for you with doctors who specialise in writing reports for legal cases, but that won’t be for a few months.
After Julius’ accident we collected his records from his physiotherapist and his GP. Most importantly, these records have to-date helped to prove both the truthfulness and extent of his injuries to the insurance company and provided the basis for our negotiation preparations to date.
Motor Vehicle Accident Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork…
Running a claim is mostly just paperwork. There’ll be letters requesting information, your signature, authorities, evidence, forms – the list is really never-ending, but here at United Legal we’re here to help you through it at each step.
The best part? Here at United Legal we run everything on a no-win, no-fee cost agreement. Therefore, if you don’t win your case, you don’t have to pay us. Give us a call on 02 6295 2292 or admin@unitedlegal.com.au if you have any questions or want to discuss anything further.
For our legal support services Contact us at (02) 6295 2283
Visit us at Unit 1, 54-56 Townsville St, Fyshwick ACT 2609
Jayden Payne
