accident at work compensation

Accident At Work Compensation You Can Claim For Workplace Injury

Work injuries can have a profound effect on your physical health and psychological well-being, as well causing you to lose pay when you are off work recovering. You will no doubt encounter costs and expenses you would not ordinarily have to incur as well as funding a solicitor to help you make your accident at work compensation claim.

In this article – we set out the main different types of compensation you can claim for personal injury in an accident at work – from pain and suffering to financial losses and legal costs in making your claim.

Table of Contents

What can you claim as part of your accident at work compensation?

There are four main types of loss and expense that you may be entitled to claim as part of your accident at work compensation claim. These sums are all added together by your solicitor to give the overall compensation payout amount you can claim, which include:

Financial Loss And Expense

When you suffer an injury in an accident at work – you will no doubt experience financial losses (such as lost income from your inability to work) and expenses (for example – medical expenses, such as the cost of painkillers).

These losses and expenses are technically known as special damages. They are unique or special to you as an individual. They may have already been incurred (past loss) or may have yet to be incurred (future loss).

Watch out –  you must prove each aspect of your claim, including financial loss – so keep receipts and evidence to support these losses.

The types of financial loss can be quiet extensive – but the most common examples of specials damages included in an accident at work compensation claim, include:

Lost income

If your accident resulted in your being unable to work for a period of time: you are entitled to claim lost income as a net amount – income after tax and national insurance is deducted.

When you have had an accident at work – your employer may be required under your employment contract to continue paying you some income during your absence. If so your lost income claim is calculated from the difference between your rate of pay prior to your accident and the rate during your absence.

Travel expenses

You can claim the travel expenses as part of your accident at work compensation, including those to and from hospital and your GP. If you used your own vehicle – including that of a friend or family member – you can claim a mileage rate (this rate can vary depending on when your claim is made).

Medical expenses

You are entitled to claim the medical expenses you paid to have your injuries treated – including private medical expenses (should there have been a good reason you were unable to use the NHS) and prescription expenses.

Nursing expense

Sometimes your injuries are so bad that you were forced to pay for professional nursing assistance during your recovery period. You can claim this expense.

Watch out – the need for professional nursing assistance must be reasonable, so your solicitor will need to put this to the independent medical expert who completes a report to support your work accident claim.

Care and assistance from friends and family

If family members or friends provided you with care and assistance – you are entitled to claim an hourly rate for their time spent.

Remember – statements from the individuals who supplied the assistance would be necessary to support this expense.

Loss of holiday

If you had a holiday booked which you were unable to go on as a result of your accident – you may be entitled to claim the cost of the holiday. If you were able to go on the holiday, but were unable to enjoy the holiday due to your injury- you may be entitled to claim for loss of enjoyment.

work accident claim
Work Accident Claim

Pain, Suffering & Loss Of Amenity

When you suffer injury in a work accident – whether a physical injury or psychological damage, that injury causes you pain and suffering as well as stopping you from being able to do things that you could do before your accident (loss of amenity).

These losses are not as easy to quantify as specials damages as nobody can truly put a monetary value on what you might be experiencing.

However, some form of monetary value had to be assigned to compensate you for these injuries – so it was decided that these damages were to be classed as general damages – the same for everybody equally.

In other words, no matter who you are – from royalty, to a factory worker, to the unemployed – each would receive in general the same amount of accident at work compensation for pain and suffering for the same injury.

The amounts you can recover will depend on the nature of your injury and severity. Your solicitor will then compare that injury to judicial guidance and claims decided by the courts in the past for similar injuries – thus allowing a compensation payout figure to be determined.

For example – if you fell from a ladder at work breaking your arm and you had to have pins inserted and your broken arm took 2 years to fully heal. – you would receive the same amount as someone else who had exactly the same break and recovery period in a car accident.

Be careful – if your arm took two years to recover and somebody else had a broken arm with a recovery of one year – clearly you would received more accident at work compensation than the other individual less.

See our general damages compensation payout article for an alphabetical list of body part injury / psychological injury with examples of up to date compensation amounts for each type of injury.

Interest On Compensation

You are entitled to claim interest on both general damages and special damages. The rate of interest will vary depending on whether the type of damage is general or special.

You are only entitled to interest once your claim has commenced in court.

Interest on general damages runs from the date you commenced your claim in court and interest on special damages runs from the date that your accident occurred.

See our no win no fee / conditional fee agreement article for a description of what your legal costs include.

As a rule in UK law – the loser pays the majority of the winner’s costs. This is true in a personal injury claim so long as the pain and suffering for your injury is worth over a certain amount (currently £1,500 in 2023).

For you to be entitled to receive your legal costs prior to commencement in court of your claim – your accident lawyer must accept compensation on your behalf “subject to the payment of legal costs”.

Accident At Work Compensation Summary & Next Steps

You now know the main types of loss and expense you can claim as part of your accident at work compensation.

See an example of compensation amounts for a work shoulder injury from manual handling.

We offer a number of specialist solicitor free online / telephone help options – including asking an online question, having your claim assessed or arranging a solicitor callback to discuss making an accident at work compensation claim.