My name is Rachel and I am a new business advisor in the personal injury team at Stephensons. I am the first point of call for new clients wishing to make a personal injury claim. My job involves speaking with new clients, taking full details of their potential case and referring their case through to the department for assessment.
On a day-to-day basis I work through new enquiries and speak with new and existing clients about their personal injury claims. These enquiries can come to us from many different sources including recommendations from other clients, staff referrals, insurers or through the website. Claim types can vary although on a daily basis I mainly deal with accidents at work, occupiers’ liability, public liability, industrial disease, road traffic accidents and criminal injury claims to name a few.
Here at Stephensons, to assess a claim, we require certain information which will help the solicitor in deciding whether or not your claim has more than 50% prospects of success. The first thing we require from you are your personal details, which will allow us to add you to our system and record what has been discussed via typed file notes. I will also need to take a record of things like your GP details and any hospitals you attended.
One of the first things I will ask a new client is when the accident occurred. This is very important as there are strict rules and time limits when it comes to making a personal injury claim. For most cases, the deadline for bringing the claim is within three years from the day of the accident or the date of knowledge that an injury has been suffered due to someone else’s negligence, although different rules do apply for certain cases, which I am also able to advise you on in the initial call.
Once we have been provided with the date of the incident, we can then proceed with discussing the circumstances of the incident and gathering further information. I call this a chronology of events, which explains what has happened, how this happened, the different parties involved and who you hold at fault. To be able to make a claim, the solicitor will need to have a valid reason as to why the third party can be held at fault for the incident.
Once full instructions have been taken, the file is then sent with all the relevant information to be assessed further by a solicitor in the personal injury team. Once a decision has been made, I then contact the client to advise whether or not the case has been taken on. If we are able to take on the case, a case handler will be assigned to the case. If we are not able to proceed with the case, we will always provide a valid reason as to why.
The life of a new business advisor is very varied. We can be writing up our notes on a file one moment and then speaking with a new client the next, as we take calls as and when they come in. We have to be very good at multi-tasking! Being able to handle a busy workload is key within the role. My favourite part of my job is interacting with and building a good rapport with potential new clients. I am here to help and answer any questions you may have in relation to making a claim.
At Stephensons we understand that making a claim for the first time can be quite daunting and I am here to make that call a little easier. If you have been involved in an accident and would like to discuss whether or not you have a claim then please do not hesitate to contact myself or my colleague Donna on 0161 696 6235.
Rachel Gildart, new business advisor
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