How long do I have following an accident to make a claim for whiplash?

If you have been involved in a car accident and have sustained a whiplash injury it is important to realise that there is a time limit in which you can make a claim for your injuries. If this time limit is exceeded your claim may be statute barred – i.e. you will be prevented in law from making a claim.

The general rule is that a person who has sustained a whiplash injury (or other type of injury) has three years from the date of the accident in which to make a claim. By the third anniversary of your accident your claim must have either been settled (i.e. a compensation amount has been agreed between your solicitor and the third party’s legal representative and you have received your damages cheque) or court proceedings must have been issued. Court proceedings are only required to be issued in a very small number of personal injury cases and this usually happens where a settlement amount cannot be agreed between the parties or the issue of liability for the accident remains unresolved (i.e. neither party will admit liability for the accident).

In the case of child accidents, the rules regarding limitation (the time in which you have to make a claim) are slightly different. If a child (in law, somebody who is under the age of 18) is injured in an accident the three year time limit does not start until the child reaches their 18th birthday, meaning that they have until their 21st birthday by which to have made a claim. For example, if a young boy of 7 years old is injured in an accident his parents or guardians have two choices. They can either instruct a solicitor to act on the child’s behalf (with adult representation) soon after the accident to enable the claim to be settled sooner rather than later (usually when the child’s injuries have subsided) or they can wait until the child reaches the age of 18 so that he can make a decision on his own about whether he wishes to make a claim for the injuries he sustained as a child (which he would be able to do even if he had completely recovered from those injuries, for example, 8 months after the accident).

This extension of the three year time period also applies to other people who are classed as ‘being under a disability’, for example adults who are classed as being a protected party (i.e. of unsound mind). In this case the three year time limit starts to run from the date they are medically certified as no longer being of unsound mind.

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