Self-Employed: Proving loss of earnings due to injury

I have been reminded again this week of the challenges faced by self-employed people who wish to recover their loss of earnings after they have been injured.

My experience is that, unless you have clear and persuasive written evidence, Defendants and their insurers will refuse to meet claims for loss of earnings from self-employed people.

As a handy guide, the following documentation seems to do the trick:-

1. Your Accounts for the 3 years prior to the accident, and all the years since the accident took place. (you should ask your accountant for a copy of these).
2. Your Tax Returns for the same period. If you cannot log in online to HMRC and print these out personally, your accountant should be able to help you.
3. Details of any colleagues or work contacts (phone numbers, email addresses etc.) who can verify the income you would have received if you had been available for work after the accident.  We may need to speak to them and take a statement to disclose to the opponent.
4. All invoices and receipts for the same periods of time as opponents’ insurers and solicitors will often ask for these.

Essentially, the more paperwork we have to prove you have suffered a loss of earnings, the better the chance of recovering those losses.

We are happy to write to your accountants, HMRC, work contacts and any other person or organisation to obtain the information you need.

Our experienced team of PI Litigation specialists will review all the documents you provide, or which we obtain on your behalf, and will advise you about the likely amount of loss of earnings we should be able to recover on your behalf. If yours is a complex situation such as if you lost important clients or were a relatively new business, we will obtain a report from a forensic accountant that will quantify the amount of your earnings loss.

If, following that advice, the Defendants still are unwilling to be sensible in their offer for lost earnings, we would usually recommend starting Court proceedings. If nothing else, this shows opponents that a client is serious and will stand by their evidence and will usually lead to a settlement of a claim at the right amount.

It is a great help to us if injured people are able to produce all the documentation listed above at an early stage in the case. With the correct documentation, and a supportive medical report, it may even be possible to arrange an interim payment of lost earnings earlier in the claims process, rather than at the end.

If you wish to speak to me or any of my colleagues about recovering loss of earnings following a PI claim then please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0114 218 4000, or email us at info@tayloremmet.co.uk.