How To Look After Your Financial Well-Being After A Serious Injury

Tips on money when you have suffered an accident and may not be able to work.

A serious accident can affect your quality of life in a number of significant ways. However, the financial impact can often be surprising. You might find yourself unable to work for long periods, and reliant on the support of the state. You might find that you have to take on additional debts to keep a roof over your head. These things can have serious long-term ramifications, so it’s worth thinking about how you’ll cope with them.

Create a budget and track expenses

To begin with, you’ll want to have a plan to cope with your expenses. Draft a budget that details all of your income and outgoings over the recovery period. It might be that you can identify things to cut back on, in order to ease the financial pressure. For example, you might decide to avoid eating out for a few months. Small savings, while trivial in isolation, can often accumulate.

Explore legal options for compensation

If another individual or an organisation inflicted your injury, then you might be entitled to compensation. This goes whether the injury was caused by negligence or malice. If your injury was caused by an accident in the workplace, then you might hold your employer accountable, since under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, they’re obliged to provide a safe working environment.

By taking legal action with the help of a solicitor specialising in these matters, you’ll get the best possible chance of a good outcome. This means that you could be awarded damages and that you’ll be able to protect yourself against any discrimination that you might suffer after your injury.

Explore financial support services

There are a number of support services available to those who’ve suffered a serious workplace injury. The most obvious of these is statutory sick pay, which will entitle you to £116.75 per week, paid by your employer for up to twenty-eight weeks.

Other forms of support include universal credit, along with workplace support schemes and income protection insurance – if you’ve taken out a suitable policy before the injury was suffered.

Be wary of your debts

In the aftermath of an injury, you might be tempted to borrow money in order to absorb the financial shock. Make sure that you keep the debt to a minimum, and that you have a strategy in place to manage it. If you try to improvise, then the chances are good that you’ll end up spending more than you intended.