After a car crash in the UK, you generally have three years from the date of the accident to bring a personal injury claim, and most claims worth £5,000 or less are filed through the free Official Injury Claim portal without needing a solicitor. Compensation falls into two parts: a sum for the pain and disruption of the injury itself, and a separate sum for financial losses like lost wages, repair bills, and travel to appointments. How much you recover depends on who was at fault, how well you documented your injuries and costs, and whether you were partly to blame yourself.
What to Do at the Scene
The strongest claims are built in the first few minutes. Photograph every vehicle, the damage, their positions on the road, any skid marks, and the surrounding conditions. Dashcam footage is better still because it captures the lead-up to the impact. If anyone stopped to help, take their full name and phone number before they leave.
Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires any driver involved in an accident causing injury or damage to stop and give their name, address, and vehicle registration number to anyone with reasonable grounds to ask.1Legislation.gov.uk. Road Traffic Act 1988 – Section 170 Get the other driver’s insurance details too. If you cannot exchange details at the scene, report the collision to the police.
See a GP or visit urgent care the same day if you have any symptoms, even mild ones. Clinical records created close to the accident are the strongest evidence linking your injuries to the crash. Wait too long and an insurer will argue the injury was pre-existing or unrelated. From day one, keep receipts for towing, storage, taxis, and anything else you pay out of pocket.
Time Limits for Making a Claim
Under Section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980, you have three years to bring a personal injury claim.2Legislation.gov.uk. Limitation Act 1980 – Section 11 The clock usually starts on the date of the crash. It can start later on the “date of knowledge” if you did not immediately realise your injury was significant and linked to someone else’s fault. Soft tissue injuries sometimes take weeks to develop fully, and the three-year window moves with that later trigger.
Children and people without mental capacity are treated differently. For a child, the three years does not begin until their 18th birthday, so a ten-year-old has until they turn 21. For an adult who lacks capacity to manage their own affairs, the limitation period does not run at all while the incapacity continues. Miss the deadline in a standard case and a court will almost certainly dismiss the claim once the other side raises it. Treat the three years as a hard boundary.
How Fault Is Decided
Every driver owes a duty of care to other road users. A claim succeeds when you show the other driver breached that duty and caused your loss. The Highway Code is the main benchmark insurers and courts use. Running a red light, failing to give way at a roundabout, or tailgating are clear breaches.
When both drivers contributed, contributory negligence reduces your compensation by whatever percentage of blame is attributed to you. Not wearing a seatbelt that would have reduced your injuries typically brings a reduction of around 25%, following the principle established in Froom v Butcher. A 50/50 split is common where the evidence genuinely does not favour either side. Insurers reach split-liability agreements more often than people realise, and if the evidence is ambiguous, fighting for 100/0 can cost more in time and fees than accepting a reasonable split.
What You Can Claim For
Compensation divides into two categories, and each needs different evidence.
General Damages
General damages compensate you for pain, suffering, and the impact of the injury on your daily life. These are subjective, so the legal system uses published brackets to keep awards consistent. The Judicial College Guidelines set valuation ranges for hundreds of injury types, from minor whiplash to permanent brain damage, and solicitors and judges reference them in nearly every case.
Whiplash is a special case with a fixed statutory tariff. Under the Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025, for accidents on or after 31 May 2025 the whiplash-only award runs from £275 for injuries lasting three months or less up to £4,830 for injuries lasting between 18 and 24 months.3Legislation.gov.uk. The Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025 Where a minor psychological injury accompanies the whiplash, the tariff is slightly higher at each band, starting at £300.4GOV.UK. The Whiplash Tariff and Guidance on Minor Psychological Injuries These figures are 14–15% higher than the original 2021 tariff.
Special Damages
Special damages cover the financial losses you can calculate precisely: lost earnings, physiotherapy and other medical costs, travel to appointments, vehicle repair or replacement, and hire car costs while your vehicle was off the road. You need documentary proof for every item. Pay slips or bank statements show lost income, garage invoices prove repair costs, bus and taxi receipts cover travel.
Hire car costs attract particular scrutiny. If you used a credit hire company rather than paying for a rental yourself, the insurer will challenge whether you really needed a replacement and whether you could have hired more cheaply. Keep your bank statements. If you cannot show that upfront rental was beyond your means, the insurer may succeed in reducing what they pay.
Future Losses
When injuries are serious enough to affect your earning capacity or require ongoing care, the claim includes a lump sum for future losses. Courts calculate this using the Ogden Tables, which convert a stream of future payments into a single present-day figure. The discount rate applied across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is currently +0.5%.5GOV.UK. Ogden Tables – Actuarial Compensation Tables for Injury and Death A lower rate produces a larger lump sum, and the rate is reviewed periodically, so timing matters when the claim settles.
Filing Through the Official Injury Claim Portal
For road traffic accident injury claims valued at up to £5,000, the Official Injury Claim (OIC) portal is the required route.6UK Parliament. Whiplash Reform and the Official Injury Claim Service The portal handles claims up to £10,000 overall when vehicle damage and other losses are added to the injury element.7Official Injury Claim. Guide to Making a Claim It is free, designed for people acting without a solicitor, and represented claimants can also use it.8GOV.UK. Five Steps to Using the Online Official Injury Claim Service You upload your evidence and personal details through the portal, which generates a unique reference number once submitted. If your personal injury is worth more than £5,000, the portal is not the right route and you should seek legal advice before going further.
Once the insurer receives your Claim Notification Form, they must send an electronic acknowledgment the next day. They then have 15 business days to complete their response, including their position on liability.9Justice UK. Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents Where no insurer is identified and the claim falls to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, the response period extends to 30 days.
If the insurer admits fault, you move into settlement negotiations on the final amount. If they deny liability or dispute the value, the matter can be referred to court. Most low-value RTA personal injury claims are allocated to the small claims track, where formal legal costs are not recoverable from the other side. That means even if you win, you typically cannot recover what you paid a solicitor, which is why many claimants in this bracket handle things themselves through the OIC portal.
If the Other Driver Was Uninsured or Fled
Being hit by an uninsured driver, or by someone who drove off, does not leave you without a remedy. The Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) exists for exactly these situations and can compensate drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and other road users.10GOV.UK. Compensation for Victims of Uninsured or Hit and Run Drivers Claims go through the MIB’s own online portal.11Motor Insurers’ Bureau. Make a Claim With MIB
The MIB runs two separate schemes: the Uninsured Drivers’ Agreement when you know who hit you but they had no valid insurance, and the Untraced Drivers’ Agreement for hit-and-run cases where the driver or vehicle cannot be identified. Untraced claims are harder because the corroborating evidence is naturally thinner, so a police report, dashcam footage, and witness statements carry more weight. If you have the vehicle registration but not the driver, the usual first step is contacting the vehicle’s insurer directly.
Paying for a Solicitor
Most personal injury solicitors in England and Wales work on a “no win, no fee” basis through a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). You pay nothing upfront, and the solicitor charges a success fee only if the claim succeeds. For personal injury cases, that success fee is capped at 25% of your general damages and past financial losses combined. If you lose, you owe nothing to your own solicitor for their fees.
A Damages Based Agreement (DBA) works on similar lines, with the solicitor’s total fee for a personal injury claim also capped at 25% of general damages and past losses. The way the fee is calculated differs, but the outcome for you is comparable.
After-the-event (ATE) insurance protects you against the other side’s legal costs if your claim fails. The premium for an ATE policy taken out after April 2013 is generally not recoverable from the losing party, so it comes out of your pocket or your compensation. For low-value claims handled through the OIC portal, ATE insurance is often unnecessary because the small claims track does not typically award legal costs to either side.