Help When You Really Need It from Those Who Go the Extra Mile
Veterans UK have re-designed their website to include a section entitled Important Information which includes telling you that you do not need a paid representative such as a solicitor or a claims management company to apply for compensation.
This is absolutely true of course but what Veterans UK do not widely advertise is the fact that when you ‘go it alone’, or approach some organisations that are clearly not up to the job, you leave yourself open to failure from the weight of the Regulations that underpin the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or War Pension Scheme.
Advice when you need it
Unlike Veterans UK, we provide a service to offer advice to our client 7 days a week 365 days a year. We would challenge you to find any other organisation that is providing such a bespoke service. This is particularly relevant when so many people seek advice in the evening or over a weekend or a Bank Holiday when they have time to think about making an Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or a Ware Pension Scheme application.
It’s no good you trying to call Veterans UK after 4.00 pm Monday to Friday, or over a weekend, because they are closed. Other organisations offer similar very restrictive times when you can call or expect a response from an email.
Veterans UK can take 4 weeks to even acknowledge an email to formally confirm that they have received an application. Send them an email about your application and you can expect to wait in terms of weeks for a response.
At Military Injury we offer a unique service that includes:
- Enquiries directly through our website.
- WhatsApp messaging.
- Text Messaging.
- Emails to our support team.
- Facebook messaging.
If we receive an enquiry through our website, that message is automatically directed to the team on duty and we will respond to that message within 24 hours – often much sooner than that. This also applies to enquiries received through any of the other avenues highlighted above and we offer this 7 days a week.
Some people will test this promise by sending in an enquiry on a Sunday afternoon but in 3 years we have yet to fail to respond as promised. That is what you call offering a thorough advice service!
Why is ‘advice on demand’ so important?
We know that we will not capture a new client every time we receive an enquiry, because that is unrealistic. Furthermore, we are happy to offer free advice outlining all of the options available to prospective new clients and trust that the person making that enquiry will see that, as is so often in life, ‘you get what you pay for’ and we are no exception.
Getting the right advice from those who really know how the system works is crucial because there are any number of ways that you can kill off any chance of receiving compensation. Veterans UK has an array of clauses within the Regulations that can quickly unravel your application in an instant.
Regulations that will kill off a claim
Many claims fail because claimants do not satisfy Article 8(1): that their injury has been ‘caused (wholly or partly] by service’. Furthermore, it is Veterans UK that decides on what was and was not caused by service, so unless you understand the Regulations before you submit your claim, your chances of securing an award are slim.
Clients also fall foul of Article 11, which Veterans UK will use for claims as a result of slipping, tripping or falling. This means that if you try and make a claim because you broke your neck when tripping over an unseen hazard on your way to work, on your base, then your claim will fail as a result of this little-known clause.
Sports injuries also have a high failure rate because unless you can produce a Calling Order (or equivalent] to prove that you were authorised to play in a particular match or take part in a sports event, then your claim for an award will fail. Veterans UK accept that Calling Orders are often difficult to locate, so they offer the chance of securing an Executive Factual Report.
What they fail to tell claimants is that when they write to a Commanding Officer at a base you served at some years prior to your accident, that person is likely to have no idea who you are because they took up their post long after you left that base. The EFR goes into their pending tray because it is often not seen as a priority, and time goes by. Veterans UK then uses another Regulation under Article 63: that if this information is not provided within 3 months of the request then the claim is treated as never having been made.
Seek advice early
We know that prospective clients can seek advice from different sources, but we would stand proud and say that our system of offering advice 7 days a week means that you really can ask us for help when it suits you – instead of having to wait because the helpline at Veterans UK is closed for a Bank Holiday, for example.
We operate a thorough process that includes:
- Giving you all of your options, which includes making the application yourself.
- Telling you if we feel that you have a case for compensation.
- Telling you if we feel that your chances of success are slim.
- Us doing 90% of the work if we take a case on.
- Keeping our clients informed of the progress of their case regularly.
- Offering a dedicated member of the team to process a case from start to finish.
- Thinking outside the box in securing the right evidence for an individual claim.
- Representing clients from a basic application through to an Independent Tribunal.
- Not charging our clients anything if the application is not successful.
- Charging a flat fee of 20% of the award + VAT if the claim is successful.
- With every decision made by Veterans UK to decline a claim, offering an honest, candid opinion on the chances of success on appeal.
- Liking to win because if we don’t then we don’t get paid.
All we ask from our clients in return is for them to be honest with the information that they provide and not to put us in a position where we are processing a claim that was doomed from the outset.
Contacting us for sound advice based on years of experience could be the best decision you’ll make regarding your Armed Forces Compensation or War Pension Scheme claim.