This is why Car insurance is so high

[Mondo]

Case settled for £22,000.

Claimant's Solicitors Bill came in at £31,000.
Our Bill £6,000

Would have been cheaper to settled on day 1 for £25,000 or something and save over £30,000 in legal costs.

[Dee]

Haha, the div :D

[Belmit]

Ruddy bloody hell!

[killerkebab]

Wait, he paid 33,000 to only get 22,000 of a settlement? How does that work?

[Garp]

http://www.humour.com/videos-comiques/videos.asp?VIDvideo=9617

I bet that kind of parking doesn't help.

[Mondo]

Wait, he paid 33,000 to only get 22,000 of a settlement? How does that work?

He didn't pay, in a civil case, whoever loses pays the costs. Even in settlement the defendant pays the costs. In this case it is the insurance company and lets for the sake of argument.

You got injuried in a car accident, you sue the other driver.
The driver's insurance company admits fault.
You want £20,000 in compensation, as according to the guidelines it is within the bracket of that injury, albeit the top end.
They offer £10,000, still within the bracket, but the low end.

Everytime your solicitor look at the file or write a letter or make a phonecall on your behalf he is charging time and costs to the file. If the insurance company still don't nudge then you will ask your solicitor to start legal proceedings with claim form and stuff. And to back it up you need medical evidence so you go see a specialist and also get some physiotherapy too, all these are costing money.

The insurance company will now send the file to a firm of solicitor now to deal with it. So now the legal cost of the case probably a few thousand now + the £10k to £20k they have pay, the longer it drag on, they more it costs, if it goes to a hearing then the solicitors will instruct a barrister which then will ladd thousands easily.

Hence if the insurance company say - "We'll pay you £15,000" in the beginning then they will skip all the bit in the end, and the legal cost will be pretty low. But sometimes the claimant won't even bother to negotiate in the start, they would just get claim form ready and file to the Court, then that case the solicitors will deal with it all.

[jmc41]

I still remember the soliciters who got done for charging over 168h/week.

It really is mad, every time they think about the case they charge something to it! My own car insurance case from February still isn't resolved so I'm just waiting to hear that that one is going to court.

But at least if I win I'll be looking at 4 years no claims which someone should be happy to protect.

[Edit] And by "me" I mean Tesco :s