A claim is classed as a ‘small claim’ by the courts if the value of your non-injury losses and expenses is £10,000 or less. In terms of injuries, the general rule used to be that a ‘small claim’ was if the value of your injuries was £1,000 or less, regardless of the type of accident. That has now changed and the rules are a little more complicated. The £1,000.00 limit remains unchanged if you are a cyclist (or motorcycle rider) involved in a collision with a motor vehicle. However, from 6th April 2022, if you are an adult cyclist who has a collision with another cyclist (or a pedestrian, or an animal), or a pothole, then the small claims limit has risen to £1,500.00. Also, from 31st May 2021, the small claims limit increased from £1,000.00 up to £5,000.00 for certain types of people occupying a motor vehicle, where their injuries consist of whiplash and/or minor psychological harm, as fixed tariffs of award for those types of injury have been introduced. The small claims limit has not been increased for accidents involving “vulnerable” persons, such as children, pedestrians and two wheeled road users including pillion passengers in an accident on the public roads involving a motor vehicle. For those people, they, will not be subject to the (lower) fixed compensation tariffs which have been introduced. However, it does mean that if you have an accident with motor vehicle on a road, the small claims limit is £500.00 lower than if you have the same accident but this time with another cyclist or a pedestrian, animal, or a pothole.
The value of your injuries is decided by how long your injuries last and typically soft tissue injuries lasting for 3 -4 weeks are likely to be valued at around £1,000.00 - £1,370.00, based on current (2022) Guidelines.
From 06.04.2022, the small claims limit for injuries in accidents at work and “public liability” claims (such as a slip or trip) also goes up from £1,000.00 to £1,500.00.
Unfortunately, it does not matter how serious your injuries could have been: it is the actual injuries that you have suffered which determines the value of your claim.
How this affects your claim
In cycle accident claims cases where injuries are valued at over £1,000.00 (or £1,500.00 depending upon the type of accident), or if the value of your non-injury losses/expenses exceeds £10,000.00, your claim will not be ‘small’ and if you win, the other party has to pay a contribution towards your legal costs.
However, if the claim falls into the ‘small claim’ category, then you are only entitled to recover limited legal fees for pursuing your claim. The figure is usually a maximum of £80.00 + VAT. This would not cover the usual costs of us representing you and any amount of our fees over this amount would have to be paid by you out of your compensation.
As most personal injury claims will cost in excess of £1,000.00 to pursue (because the other party’s insurer will rarely admit liability and simply pay out with no questions), in most cases this would mean that you would have to pay out most, if not all, of your compensation in legal fees.
In some cases, if liability has been admitted or your case is straightforward (and thus we can keep the legal fees within a lower range), then we can agree to handle your claim for a fixed amount, so that you know how much will be deducted from your compensation and decide whether it is worth while us acting for you. For cases involving occupants of motor vehicles described above, we can also consider handling the claim subject to charging a contribution to our fees from out of the compensation recovered.
