Sharp Increase In Firms Seeking After The Event Insurance Cover

Insurers have seen a sharp increase in firms seeking after the event insurance cover for handling medical negligence cases.

The concern is that inexperienced practitioners are trying to deal with this type of work in search of quick wins/fees as most medical negligence cases are not subject to the fixed fees imposed on most personal injury work in 2013.

Many more firms are taking on medical negligence cases without having any experience or expertise.

This means that clients often receive poor advice and may ultimately sue their solicitor in negligence.

Advice from non specialist firms also means that clients are not being fully advised about funding their cases.

Legal aid is still available for many birth injury cases. Non specialist firms appear to be unaware of this and are offering conditional fee agreements, enabling them to retain 25% of compensation awarded.

Even if they are aware of legal aid, non specialist firms do not hold contracts with the Legal Aid Agency and so cannot offer legal aid.

Ultimately clients will suffer if they instruct firms with no understanding of the complexity of their cases and do not have their best interests foremost in their minds.

HardingEvans has an experienced and dedicated team of specialist medical negligence lawyers who will assist you on your potential medical claim or complaint. If your case does not meet the criteria for legal aid, we will discuss other types of funding. We are able to offer aConditional Fee Agreement on many cases. Often called “no win, no fee”. If your claim does not succeed then you do not pay your legal costs. If your claim does succeed we will claim most of your costs from your opponent but we can apply a success fee (which is subject to a cap) and you may require insurance (for which there may be a cost).

For more information please contact Jane Rogers on 01633 244233 or email  rogersj@hevans.com