In Ireland, except for medical Negligence claims all Personal Injury claims have to submit the claim to the PIAB, known as the Injuries Board for assessment of value. One of the forms to be submitted to the PIAB is for special damages.
You can find the online application form to the Injuries Board, Part 8 (“Special Damages”) www.piab.ie which allows you the possibility to put down the amount you are claiming for loss of earnings and in Part 9 (“Medical and Other Expenses”) there are text boxes that you can use to describe and flesh out all your detailed expenses at length, compared to the smaller section on the paper copy of Application Form A.
If you are using a private laptop, as opposed to a computer in an internet cafe or a shared network at work, your online special damages claim is processed on the PIAB’s secure server. On your request you will be given a unique user numbers and password. With these user numbers and password you will be able to revisit your online application form to either make up dates, changes and or keep a track of your personal injury claims progress.
If you complete your form online on your laptop you will have plenty of space available when putting down the details of the special damages that you are claiming for. It is useful to know that with this there is also the feature for the uploading supporting documents such as receipts, pay slips, accounts and invoices. This has the added advantage of allow you to keep all the original copies of these various documents.
If the special damages part of your Personal injury claim is a material sum it is to be recommended before you upload your personal injury claim to the PIAB that you get professional advice from your accountant so as you do not either over or under claim in this part of the application form. It is also necessary that you review your forms with an experienced and successful Personal Injury solicitor as there are very good reasons why you should do so.
