How to claim compensation after a road accident

Get the injured person treated first and argue about money afterwards. A statutory cashless treatment scheme for road accident victims has been notified with standard operating procedures, covering treatment at designated hospitals up to a capped amount and for a capped period from the date of the accident, including stabilisation in the first hours. It exists precisely so that a hospital does not demand a deposit before starting.

Report the accident to the police and insist on an FIR. Without a police record the tribunal claim becomes very difficult and the hit-and-run route is closed entirely. If the police are reluctant, the offence is cognizable and there are escalation routes to the superintendent and the magistrate.

Note the registering number of the vehicle, and photograph it. If the vehicle leaves the scene and is never identified, you move from the tribunal route to the government fund, and the difference in what is payable is very large.

Ask about the Detailed Accident Report. Under the 2022 rules the police are required to conduct a detailed investigation and submit the DAR within the notified timelines, and to serve it on the tribunal, the insurer and the claimant. It records the vehicles, the drivers, the insurance, the injuries and the investigation. It is now the document a tribunal works from, and a claim built on it moves far faster than one built on a family's own reconstruction.

Collect and keep every medical document from day one: the emergency record, admission notes, all investigation reports, the discharge summary, every bill and receipt, and prescriptions for anything bought outside. Compensation for treatment is proved by paper, not by testimony.

If someone has died, do not agree to waive the post-mortem. It is the single most persuasive evidence about the cause of death, and its absence is used against the claim.

Do not accept cash from the driver, and do not sign anything the other side puts in front of you at the hospital. A signed settlement or discharge voucher taken during the first week routinely turns out to be worth a fraction of the eventual award, and getting out of one afterwards is difficult.

State governments constitute Motor Accident Claims Tribunals under the Motor Vehicles Act to decide claims for compensation arising from accidents involving motor vehicles — death, bodily injury and third-party property damage. This is the principal remedy and the one that produces the largest awards.

The claim is filed against the driver, the owner and the insurer together. The insurer is the party that ultimately pays a third-party award, which is why third-party motor insurance is compulsory in the first place, and why the first thing to establish about the other vehicle is whether it was insured.

There are two ways to frame a claim. One requires you to establish that the accident was caused by the other party's negligence, and has no statutory ceiling on the award. The other is a no-fault route that pays a fixed statutory sum without proving negligence, which is faster and much smaller. Claimants with a serious injury or a death almost always want the first; the second exists for cases where fault cannot be proved at all.

The tribunal is not a civil court in the ordinary sense. Procedure is simplified, the standard is preponderance of probability rather than anything stricter, and contributory negligence reduces an award proportionately rather than defeating it. A pedestrian who was crossing carelessly is not thereby uncompensated.

There is a time limit for filing, and it is short enough to matter. Do not spend a year negotiating with an insurer and then discover the tribunal route has closed. Check the current limitation position before agreeing to any delay.

Interim relief is available while the claim is pending, and this is underused. A family with no income after the death of an earner should be asking for it rather than waiting for a final award.

Many tribunals refer motor accident claims to Lok Adalat for settlement. A Lok Adalat award is final and binding and cannot be appealed, which is an advantage if the figure is right and a serious problem if it is not. Do not accept one without understanding what the tribunal would likely have awarded.

Compensation is not a single number chosen by the tribunal. It is assembled from heads, and understanding the heads is how you avoid under-claiming.

Medical expenses actually incurred, proved by bills, plus the cost of future treatment where a doctor certifies it will be needed. Transport to hospital, special diet and attendant charges are claimable and are routinely forgotten.

Loss of income during treatment and convalescence, proved by salary slips, an employer's certificate, or income tax returns for the self-employed. This is where filing returns even on modest income turns out to matter enormously.

Loss of future earning capacity, which in a serious injury or death claim is usually the largest head. It is computed from the deceased's or injured person's income, an addition for future prospects, a deduction for personal expenses in death cases, and a multiplier tied to age. This structured method is what makes tribunal awards predictable, and it is also why an early offer that ignores it is always low.

Pain, suffering and loss of amenities, and in disability cases the loss of the ability to do things that cannot be measured in income.

In death cases, conventional heads for loss of estate, funeral expenses and loss of consortium for the spouse, children and parents.

Against all that, the tribunal deducts any amount already received for the same loss from the same source, so keep a clear record of what has been paid and by whom.

Documents drive the arithmetic. Age is proved by a birth or school certificate, income by returns and salary slips, disability by a certificate from a competent medical board, and dependency by the family relationship. A claim with a good factual case and no documents is settled cheap.

Where the vehicle causing the accident is never identified, the tribunal route is unavailable and the claim goes to the compensation scheme for victims of hit-and-run motor accidents, which came into effect from 1 April 2022 and superseded the Solatium Scheme, 1989. Compensation under it was raised substantially for both grievous hurt and death, the application process and payment were made time bound, and it is funded through the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund created by rules notified at the same time.

The application goes through the district-level machinery specified in the scheme, supported by the police record. This is exactly why the FIR matters even when nobody expects the vehicle to be found.

Separately, every motor insurance policy carries compulsory personal accident cover for the owner-driver, and many carry optional cover for passengers. That is a contractual claim against your own insurer, independent of who was at fault, and it is claimed under your own policy rather than through the tribunal.

Own-damage cover on your own vehicle is again separate — a claim on your policy for repairs, subject to your deductible and no-claim bonus.

Insurer behaviour in motor claims is regulated. The regulations require insurers to have board-approved claim settlement policies, to disclose the appointment and role of surveyors and loss assessors to the insured, and to make deductions and settlements transparent. If a deduction is unexplained, you are entitled to ask for it in writing and it is a proper subject of a complaint.

If the insurer rejects or underpays, the grievance route runs through the insurer's grievance officer, then the regulator's complaint portal, then the Insurance Ombudsman — which is free, needs no lawyer, and issues awards binding on the insurer.

A tribunal claim and an insurance grievance are not alternatives. Where both apply, run them in parallel and disclose what you have received in each.

You do not need to pay for a lawyer to bring a tribunal claim. Victims of road accidents are among the categories entitled to free legal services through the legal services authorities, which provide a lawyer at state expense and run the Lok Adalat system that settles a large share of motor claims. Approach the district legal services authority attached to the court complex.

If you engage a lawyer privately, agree the fee basis in writing at the start. Motor accident work is often taken on a share of the award, and the share should be discussed before the claim is filed rather than after it succeeds.

The most expensive mistake is settling early. The second is failing to obtain a disability certificate from a competent authority, because permanent disability is what converts a modest injury claim into a substantial one and it cannot be established retrospectively from memory.

The third is not claiming for the family members who are entitled. In a death case, dependency is claimed by those who were actually dependent, and leaving out a parent or an adult child who was supported reduces the total.

The fourth is silence about the accident to your own insurer where your own vehicle was involved. Late intimation is a standard ground for repudiation, and it is entirely avoidable.

Finally, keep every original. Tribunals and insurers both work from originals, families lose them during long hospital stays, and a bill that cannot be produced is a bill that was never incurred as far as the arithmetic is concerned.