If you’re in the midst of filing an insurance claim, you’re likely ready to accept a check from your insurance adjuster and move on. After all, filling out forms and living in a state of chaos is no fun. You want the stress to end and the ability to make the necessary repairs.

However, insurance companies don’t always pay you in full so it pays to take your time during this process. Remember that insurance companies are businesses, not non-profit organizations. They are in business to make money, not spread goodwill. This means that they have to make wise decisions, charge premiums for their service, and look for ways to minimize their losses.

Now, you have paid for your coverage through your premiums and you deserve to get the service that you paid for. Unfortunately, unless you are vigilant, you may not be fully reimbursed for your insurance losses.

This doesn’t mean that your insurance adjuster is out to get you or is dishonest, but it does mean that you have to be proactive. Insurance adjusters are often extremely busy and don’t take the time to thoroughly inspect your home for damage. You must insist on it. For example, if your home was battered in a hail storm, insist that the adjuster physically inspect the roof for hail damage or have a roofing company’s inspection report in hand detailing the recent hail damage found.

Keep in mind that the insurance adjuster’s estimates may be insufficient. The adjuster may authorize carpet cleaning after a pipe bursts in the home when in reality the carpet will need to be replaced. Another concern is when the insurance adjuster is unfamiliar with actual building costs in your area. In addition, adjusters often use software to calculate repairs. If these calculations were based on an incorrect entry, the results will be wrong. For example, if the adjuster meant to enter 100 square feet but accidentally entered just 10, the dollar amount calculated will be way too low.

Because of all of these factors alone, you must scrutinize every detail. Compare your insurance adjuster’s settlement offer with actual estimates. You may need to sit down and negotiate with the insurance company, pointing out mistakes, omissions, and estimates that are too low. This is not unreasonable, nor is it unexpected. However, very few homeowners are willing to take these actions. There’s no reason to be intimidated. So long as you have documentation and approach these negotiations professionally, you should be able to work with your insurance company and get paid for the whole thing.

With the rising number of motorcyclists, despite the regular generalisations of motorcyclists always being the cause, rather than the victim, of crashes – there is much evidence to support the government’s campaigns for drivers of other motor vehicles to be more vigilant in making themselves aware of motorcycles themselves and possible situations where they may encounter problems with motorbikes or other smaller form of transportation such as a scooter, moped or other powered cycle.

Most people in the UK if asked will normally answer any question regarding motorbike accidents with sweeping generalizations but more recent studies have shown that it is most likely to be either end of the motorcycles rider’s scale that will cause an accident in the UK, not the general riders. In other words, the individuals most likely to cause a motorcycle crash are young inexperienced riders or older riders but with much more powerful machines than your average user. This is self explanatory really and once considered is also quite reasonable to assume even without the actual evidence available. Young riders are probably just as likely to cause a motorbike accident as their car driving counterparts are to cause a car incident. Rash driving and inexperience of the road in general will normally result in more than one motorbike crash (as long as the first is not fatal obviously) either by colliding with another vehicle or object themselves, or by being hit by another road user who did not see them due to the inexperienced motorcyclist positioning themselves incorrectly in a flow of traffic.

Of course, the more controversial motorbike accidents are those involving older drivers. Probably every road user at some point in their lives has almost collided with a motorcyclist driving like a complete idiot and that is the general image that we hold. Of course, we’ve all probably come across a dozen more car drivers acting like idiots but a possible motor bike accident seems to stick with us much more as the percentage of bad bike riders that we will come into contact with on the UK’s roads is much higher than the percentage of bad car drivers so it feels like they are all bad. The usual suspects – overtaking other vehicles even with oncoming traffic heading towards them, driving in between lanes of traffic even though those lanes are still moving and cars are switching lanes, driving around blind corners at high speeds even though there may be stopped traffic round them and so on. 

So how does this affect motorcycle accident claims? Unfortunately, when placing actual blame in a motorbike accident investigation a certain amount of bias will be automatically placed against the rider of motorbikes due to these public perceptions of these forms of transport. You have to remember, it is the police that generally provide all the statistics on fatalities and injuries for these studies so they are more than just aware of the likelihood of the incident being the fault of the motor-cycle.

So when looking for someone to blame for your motorbike accident injury you may have a slightly harder time and may have to have more conclusive evidence to prove that you were not the cause of your own demise. But, motorcycle accident compensation itself is not affected by the actual form of transportation. Even though motorcycle injuries are generally more severe than those experienced by car drivers due to how exposed you are, your compensation amounts are not penalised for having chosen to ride a bike.

In summary, motorbike claims are as standard as other road vehicle claims and despite the bias that will inevitably be in the minds of everyone who handles your case, as long as you have the proof and the documentation then your compensation will be obtained and awarded in the exact same manner with the exact same values.

Legal firms who specialise in offering a conveyancing service are beginning to struggle to make the profits they were once used to. The downturn in the housing market has meant there are far less buyers and therefore fewer houses are actually selling.

Lawyers used to the property boom years are now starting to find it hard to survive, and many have to make stuff cut backs in order to save money. In addition the job market for newly qualified solicitors who wish to go into conveyancing is practically non-existent in some parts of the country. What is making the situation worse is that conveyancing has always been a large part of the legal industry in the UK and therefore a lot of time and effort has been spent building up practices and legal firms to cater for this need. Within the last year this seems to have changed completely due the drastic down turn in the number of people actually buying and selling property.

But it is not just the legal firms that are struggling in today’s market. Recruitment firms specialising in legal markets have felt the knock on effects of less conveyancing work. One firm said that just last year half of the job vacancies that they were advertising were conveyancing related, now they say that that figure has dropped to zero. In addition there has been an increase in the number of the solicitors looking for work, especially those who are newly qualified. Legal firms just don’t seem to have the volume of work that they used and therefore are not taking on any new staff as well as reducing the number of existing ones. Legal firms across the whole of the property market are feeling the crunch with the property downturn now spreading into the commercial arena as well as the private sector. This will only mean harder times ahead if the market’s fortunes do not start improving soon.

However even if the property market did start to make a turn round soon, it is still unlikely that the legal firms will be able to make a speedy recovery. Conveyancing firms have also been hit by bad press due to a number of unscrupulous lawyers with very dubious legal practices. One such tale concerns a number of banks who lost millions of Euros, after two solicitors secured multiple mortgages on properties stating that they had registered the title deeds to act as security on the loans. By the time the banks found out they had been lied to, the situation was dire and they had lost their money. Since then some banks have shown nervousness in accepting assurances from solicitors and are insisting that title deeds are submitted. This had put an additional pressure on solicitors’ working in this field as well as increasing the amount of time need to complete the conveyancing process. The legal profession has been trying to work hard to limit the damage caused by these two solicitors and have been recommending that solicitors be barred from practicing if they fail to register title deeds. These are all steps in the right direction, but for the time being the situation is looking bleak for conveyancing firms. However it is hoped that once the housing market starts to recover the legal profession will not be too far behind.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Keith Mallinson

Personal injury protection is advisable for most people depending on the everyday driving activities of the person involved. This is not just a frivolous indulgence either, especially if you have the responsibility of paying a mortgage and dependents that rely on your physical wellbeing. Personal injury protection or PIP may be a part of a larger personal insurance plan or a specific plan in and of itself. As with many things in life, it is often those that need something the most that cannot afford it and this type of insurance does not always fit into the average family’s monthly expenses. The situation can be made worse when the policy has not been researched carefully and does not insure everything it was intended to.

In America personal injury protection is now a required form of insurance cover in many states although the amount does vary depending where you are in the USA. In Alaska for example a car driver will require ten times the amount of insurance cover that a driver will in Florida. Even if personal injury protection is not obligatory in your state, you may still want to consider purchasing the insurance policy to protect you from any personal injury insurance claim. Personal Injury protection will pay around 80% (depending on the insurance plan) of the costs of the insurance holder and passengers. But because personal injury protection is considered a no fault insurance policy it covers you and your passengers, even if it was your fault, for medical bills, expenses and any lost earnings.

Before you purchase personal injury protection, you would be advised to take a look at your current policies and see whether or not the areas covered by the proposed personal injury protection are not already duplicated with other insurance plans. It could be that the cost of lost wages and medical bills may be recovered through an existing health insurance policy. If you were to discover this it may only be necessary to take out a minimal cover personal injury protection policy and possibly not require one at all.

Your driving record can also be a contributing factor when considering whether or not you actually require personal injury protection. If you carry passengers on a regular basis your health insurance might cover your own medical expenses, it won’t however, cover those of your passengers (unless they are members of your family who are on your health plan). If, after checking your current health insurance you find that passengers are not protected by the policy you will be required to ensure they are covered by a personal injury protection plan in the event of an accident. It is not unfair to assume that any person traveling in your vehicle should be the responsibility of the driver and insured individual.

If you live in a state that does not have mandatory personal injury protection you may want to add this into your insurance portfolio. Many drivers find they only require minimal personal injury protection cover as they are middle aged, experienced drivers with a good record and already have an adequate health insurance plan in force. Younger drivers however, do not fair so well if they are inexperienced with little insurance cover in place but they are often in greater need of good health insurance cover to protect themselves and any family they have. Accidents unfortunately happen but before you rush into buying insurance cover, look into the subject as it could save you some money but more importantly will make you feel more secure when you drive with passengers.

Councils are paying more compensation for accident claims, than ever before. Trips and slips caused by uneven paving stones have cost one council in excess of £2.5 million pounds over the last four years. With the average claim around £1800, the resources of local authorities are seriously being drained.

Another city council paid out over five million pounds during an eight year period, and these figures are rising. It seems that councils need to take greater care in future to ensure that the average passer-by and pedestrian can walk the streets of their local authority without being subject to the risk of injuring themselves because of the negligence of the council.

If someone has an accident while walking on a public pathway they may be entitled to compensation, if it can be shown that the council was at fault. Claims can be made against the council if an accident is caused by tripping up on a paving stone which juts out more than an inch above the rest of the path. Councils can additionally be held responsible if a pothole is more than an inch deep and results in an accident. All councils can be vulnerable  to these risks unless they keep a strict watch on the state of their public highways and pavements.

Many councils argue that it is not an automatic right to receive compensation if you have been the victim of an accident, but the evidence cannot be refuted and shows that the numbers of claims are constantly rising. By making a claim the victim is arguing that a failure of statutory duty or an act of negligence has been propagated by the council. It is the responsibility of the victim to prove that the council was a fault in order to receive compensation. This is legally determined on what is called the balance of probabilities, which basically means that there has to be more than a 51 percent likelihood that the council was to blame for the accident.

After submitting a claim the council will conduct an investigation and report back their findings. If they find that they have been negligent they will offer a settlement, which will often take into account any loss of earnings. This may settle one part of the problem, but until public roads and walk ways are made safe they are still at risk.

Fentons has one of the largest and most experienced road traffic accident departments in Britain, with expert teams specialising in handling complex cases involving long term programmes of rehabilitation. We have recovered substantial damages in many car accident claim instances where other solicitors’ firms have advised the client to abandon a claim. If you are unfortunate enough to suffer a road traffic accident, which was not your fault, you might be able to make a personal injury claim for compensation.
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