Special Damages: The Financial Losses You Can Claim After an Injury in the UK

General damages and special damages

Compensation in England and Wales has two parts:

• General damages pay for the injury itself: the pain, suffering and loss of amenity. For most road traffic whiplash they come from a fixed tariff; for other injuries, from the Judicial College Guidelines brackets.
• Special damages repay financial losses caused by the injury, so that you end up, as far as money can do it, where you would have been.

People often focus on the first and underclaim the second. For many claims the special damages add up to more than people expect, especially where family members helped with care or you missed weeks of work.

Lost earnings

You can claim the net earnings you lost: what you would have received after tax and National Insurance. That includes overtime, shift allowances, bonuses and commission you would realistically have earned.

If your employer paid you sick pay that you must repay, or you used holiday to cover time off, you can usually claim for that too. Self-employed people can claim lost profit, supported by accounts, invoices and tax returns.

Evidence: payslips from before and after the accident, a letter from your employer confirming time off and pay lost, or your accounts if self-employed.

Care and help from family

If a partner, relative or friend helped you with washing, dressing, cooking, shopping, childcare or driving while you recovered, you can claim for that help even though they were not paid. Courts usually value it at the hourly rate a professional carer would charge, reduced to reflect that no tax or agency fees were paid; a discount of around a quarter is common.

Paid care is claimed at the actual cost.

Evidence: a simple diary of who helped, with what and for how long. Even a rough weekly estimate written at the time is far more persuasive than a figure put together months later.

Travel

You can claim for journeys you would not otherwise have made: trips to hospital, GP, physio and the medical examination, plus parking. Mileage is often claimed at a standard rate per mile, commonly around 45p. If you could not drive because of the injury, extra taxi or public transport costs can be claimed too.

Evidence: a list of appointments with dates and distances, and parking receipts.

Treatment and medication

Prescription charges, painkillers, supports and braces, and private physiotherapy or other treatment recommended by a doctor can all be claimed. The medical report in your claim may recommend a course of treatment; if it does, the cost of that treatment should be part of your claim.

Evidence: receipts, and the letter or report recommending private treatment.

Other losses

• clothing, glasses, phones or other belongings damaged in the accident
• extra household costs, such as paying someone to clean, garden or decorate because you could not
• childcare you had to pay for while attending appointments
• the cost of adaptations or equipment needed because of the injury

Vehicle repairs, hire cars and loss of use in road traffic claims are often handled separately by your own insurer or a credit hire company. Check what is already being claimed so nothing is missed or paid twice.

Things that reduce special damages

Two rules often surprise people:

• Benefits. If you received certain state benefits because of the injury, the compensator must repay them to the Department for Work and Pensions' Compensation Recovery Unit, and can reduce the matching parts of your compensation, such as lost earnings or care. Compensation for the injury itself is protected from this.
• Your share of blame. If you were partly to blame, for example by not wearing a seatbelt, the whole award, including special damages, is reduced by that percentage.

Interest is usually added to past financial losses, and the compensator may also have to repay NHS treatment costs directly to the NHS; that does not come out of your compensation.

Putting it together

In a claim, your losses are set out in a schedule of loss: a list of every item with the amount and the evidence. You can build a simple version yourself as you go. Our UK compensation calculator adds your losses to the value of the injury and applies any reduction for blame.

For road traffic claims under £5,000 for the injury, the same losses are entered on the Official Injury Claim portal. If a solicitor is handling your claim on a no win no fee basis, their success fee usually comes out of your total compensation, so a complete list of losses matters even more.