Highway Incident Questionnaire

Accidents causing damage or injury

If you have been injured or your property has been damaged whilst using our local roads you have the right to make a claim for compensation.

Please note: There is no automatic right to compensation.

The city council maintains the road within its boundary but cannot be held responsible for every problem e.g. independent contractor, actions of a third party etc.

Making a claim

Before submitting your claim, please make sure you have evidence of the fault that you believe caused your incident and evidence of the damages.

When completing your form, please provide as much information and detail as possible such as locations and relevant copies of invoices. If there is damage to a vehicle, you will need to provide vehicle tax and insurance documents.

Once we have received your form, the team will investigate the circumstances leading up to the accidents and then information you have provided. Then your claim form will be passed over to our claim handlers who will accept or reject the claim.

Evidence of financial loss or injury

In the instance of financial loss or injury, we would ask for you to supply evidence of your property damage, this should include documents such as your vehicles tax/insurance and MOT as it is a legal requirement to have these in place.

By law you must keep your losses to a minimum. For cases involving damage it is advisable to repair the property as quickly as possible. Compensation settlements will only be based on the original loss and not any upcoming related losses.

If you have been injured, our claims handlers or our solicitors may ask for medical evidence from your doctor, or other supporting evidence; for example, if you have included a claim for loss of earnings.

Decision

The decision will be based on the facts and the law and will always reflect what conclusion it is believed the courts would come to.

If it is considered a court would reject a claim, then the claim handlers will do the same. This happens when having carefully investigated the circumstances of your claim it is not accepted that the incident has resulted from any negligence or breach of its statutory duty.

If on the other hand, it is considered the courts would award compensation, then they will offer to settle the claim.

Fraud statement

It is an offence to make a fraudulent claim for financial loss or personal injury or to exaggerate one. We have a duty to protect public funds and will use the information you provide for the detection and prevention of fraud. Our agents and ourselves may share this information with other government, legal and insurance bodies for these purposes. We may also share this information with other bodies for the auditing or administration of public funds for these purposes. If a fraudulent claim is made, the Council will seek recovery of its legal and other costs and aim to prosecute all involved offenders.

Timeframe

When we receive your completed claim form and supporting documentation, this will be passed to the appointed insurance claims handlers and we will endeavour to provide you with the decision on liability within 90 days.

Please note that this is only a guideline and can be longer during busy periods.

How we use your personal data