Hard Bargaining: Out of Court Settlement in Personal Injury Actions

Out Of Print
The book looks at the process by which injury claims are settled without a trial in England. Settlement negotiations are conducted between solicitors acting for the injured person and claims negotiators employed by insurance companies.

The bargains struck are not supervised by the courts (except in the case of injured children) and nor are they formally recorded. Out of court settlements are in the best interests of the administration of justice, but are they in the best interests of injured people? Are the bargains reached always fair? This is the issue addressed by this book.

Drawing on interviews with solicitors, barristers, and insurance company claims negotiators, a feature of this study is that for the first time it brings together information from all of the parties involved in negotiation procedure.

After discussing the inequalities between injured plaintiffs and insurance companies, the study reveals how the nature of the law, the structure of court procedures and their advantages as "repeat players" in litigation leads insurance companies to take the toughest possible line in settling injury claims.