Accidents - cut out the middlemen (Published 13/02/06)

Over the last few years the accident claim business has changed out of all recognition. When I first qualified as a lawyer you very rarely saw an advert asking you if you had had an accident or wanted to make a claim. But at times in more recent years almost every advert you saw was one of those. This seems to have died down slightly recently, so I thought maybe it might be useful if I try to clear up some of the confusion that all this causes.

Historically if you had an accident and wanted to make a claim you would go to see a solicitor. In that respect nothing much has changed, you still need a solicitor. The accident companies that you see advertising so much are not solicitors. You can tell that because they never use the word 'solicitor'. This is a dead giveaway.

The word 'solicitor' is a word protected by law. You are not allowed to call yourself one unless you are one, and you only get to be one by training for years and years and passing lots and lots of exams. But you can always save yourself the trouble by calling yourself something else that sounds similar, and hoping that nobody notices the subtle difference.

The phrase 'accident claims specialists' is a frequent one. There is no legal restriction at all on this phrase. Anyone can use it, and a lot of the accident companies do. You could literally get out of bed tomorrow morning and decide to pack in whatever you do now and set yourself up as an 'accident claims specialist', just like that. No training required, no registration no regulation no restriction whatsoever. You do not need to know anything at all about accident compensation claims.

So how do these companies operate, then, if they are not properly qualified? Easy. The key to understanding it is to realise that all these companies are just middlemen. They do not deal with accident claims at all. All they do is pass them on to solicitors to deal with, taking the usual middleman's cut along the way.

Now not all solicitors are prepared to deal with accident companies. After all, why should you pay for a middleman? This is why you often find that if you go to an accident company they will refer you to a law firm in Newcastle or Bristol or wherever, nowhere near where you live. They usually justify this by saying that that firm has been quality selected or some such, but the truth is often that that's the firm that pays them the most!

We at Wilsons have never paid for referrals from accident companies. If you want us, you can come to us direct and save a bob or two! Seven days a week!