Road Injury & Car Accident Lawyer

If you have been injured due to a road accident and the accident was not your fault, you will have a claim. Strict time limits apply for lodging claims so don’t delay in seeking advice. You have 9 months from the date of the accident to lodge the claim with the insurer of the vehicle at fault and 3 years from the date of the accident to commence court proceedings.

Once you have retained us, we take care of preparing and lodging any and all claim forms and making sure court proceedings are commenced and on time. Your claim will be covered by the CTP insurer of the driver or person at fault. We can assist in finding out all the necessary details for you to be able to make a claim. Once the claim has been lodged, we can and will assist with your medical and rehabilitation needs by dealing with the insurer and your health care providers.

When all of your injuries have settled down and stabilised, we can seek and recover for you monetary compensation for the following:

(a) Pain and Suffering;

(b) Loss of Wages or Income;

(c) Future Loss of Wages or Income;

(d) Past and Future Loss of Superannuation Benefits;

(e) Out of Pocket Expenses;

(f) Past and Future Medical Treatment Costs;

(g) In some cases, Past and Future domestic Care and Assistance;

(h) In some cases, a healthy contribution towards your legal costs which at vbr Lawyers will result in at least 60% of your total legal bill being paid by the insurer.

Yes. Only a minority of the claims we make involve claims for people who have been forever prevented from working by accident-related injuries. Most claims we make involve are for people who are still working, but with some problems. Valuable compensation is still recoverable in that situation, because while you may be back at work, your capacity for work might not be the same as it once was. In any case, the best thing to do is to notify the claim as soon as possible. If it turns out you are completely symptom-free and the claim does not proceed, you will owe nothing to us or anyone else.

We strongly recommend that you seek legal advice as soon as possible because the moment you have been injured in a road accident, you have a potential claim. Your potential claim and the value of the claim will be determined by complex laws. Accordingly, you should get proper legal advice and we are happy to provide it to you and at no obligation.

An expert in personal injury law will be able to promptly advise you of your rights, the claim process, what needs to be done and when and answer any and all questions you might have about your rights, how to run and win the case, advise on whether the case can be won and, if so, how long it might take to complete and the likely full value of the claim. It is not mandatory or compulsory for injured people to retain a lawyer, however, the information we have from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission reveals that when injured people do not use a car accident lawyer, the average settlement is less than $10,000.00. When motor vehicle accident personal injury lawyers are acting for injured people, the average settlement is over $85,000.00.

We think you will be pleasantly surprised and relieved about our fee structure and fee policy as compared with the larger firms. In fact, we guarantee it.

There are strict time limits for making a claim. Firstly, there is a 9 month time limit from the date of the accident to submit the Notice of Accident Claim Form with the compulsory third party insurer of the vehicle at fault or 1 month from your first meeting with a lawyer regarding the claim, whichever is the earlier. If you meet with us, we will prepare and lodge the claim for you at no obligation. We are not aware of any other firm in Queensland who provides this service. In the event that you make a full recovery from your injuries within a few months of the accident and the claim is not economically viable to proceed with legal representation, we will not charge you anything for the professional time we have spent meeting with you, and preparing and lodging the claim.

We provide this service to our clients to immediately remove any concerns or stress about seeking legal advice early and with respect to legal costs. We strongly recommend that you get early legal advice regarding your rights and to ensure that any and all claim forms are prepared accurately and lodged promptly and to provide a legal buffer between you and the insurer.

The sooner the insurer knows about your accident and injuries, costs and financial losses, the earlier you will receive medical treatment and rehabilitation and paid for by the insurer. If you were injured by an unidentified or unregistered vehicle then stricter time limits apply. You have three months to lodge the claim with the Nominal Defendant or one month from your first meeting with a lawyer regarding the claim, whichever is the earlier. The benefit of engaging an expert personal injury lawyer to look after you and your claim is that it immediately becomes the responsibility of your lawyer to take care of the time limits and to make sure the documents are lodged or filed on time.

Secondly, there is a three year time limit from the date of injury to commence court proceedings if you have suffered personal injuries from a road accident. If court proceedings are not commenced within three years of the date of accident/injury, your right to commence or pursue a compensation claim or claim for damages will be lost forever. Commencing court proceedings is only ever necessary if we have been able to resolve or settle your claim at the initial settlement conference which is called the compulsory conference. Many but not all claims settle at the compulsory conference. We are even able to resolve some claims before the compulsory conference.

Approximately 99% of all of the cases vbr Lawyers have taken on have been settled or resolved out of court or prior to trial.

Based on our collective experience in running and resolving this type of claim over many years, it usually takes 6 to 18 months for your claim to resolve from the date of the accident. We will explain the likely legal fees upfront and from day one. We provide industry leading transparency regarding our fee structure and fee policy. What’s more, no matter what happens or at what stage your case settles, the professional costs will not under any circumstances exceed 30% of the value of the claim after deduction of statutory refunds and legal disbursements/expenses.

Example

If your case settles for $100,000.00 clear of any and all statutory refunds, we will not charge more than $30,000.00 for professional costs.

Even if we had incurred say $50,000.00 worth of professional costs to achieve the settlement and to win the case, your bill for our professional costs will not exceed $30,000.00

Using the same example, if we incurred only $15,000.00 worth of professional costs to achieve the settlement, you would of course be charged $15,000.00 not $30,000.00

We are confident you will find our fees and charges to be extremely reasonable.

We can provide immediate assistance with this. From the moment you retain us regarding your road accident claim we will:-

(a) Prepare and lodge the claim for you;

(b) Find out what medical and/or rehabilitation needs you have which are not being met;

(c) We will communicate with your treating doctor/s and arrange a treatment plan to be provided to the insurer;

(d) We will follow up with the insurer to make sure they action the treatment plan/s with priority;

(e) Once we have received funding approval from the insurer, we will keep an eye on your medical and rehab needs to make sure the insurer is doing everything it should and can to assist with your recovery.

Yes. We offer our services to our clients on a ‘No Win, No Fee’ basis.

At vbr Lawyers, our ‘No Win, No Fee’ policy is this:

(a) You will only ever pay legal fees for the work we do at the end of your claim and if and only if you win;

(b) We will fund and run the case for you and the legal costs will come out of your settlement monies which are paid by the insurer;

(c) In the very, very unlikely event that your claim goes to court and in the even more unlikely event that a trial is required and you lose, you would still pay us nothing but you are likely to be ordered by the court to pay the other side’s legal costs.