“Why am I having to lose up to a quarter of my damages?”

The insurance industry persuaded the Government that successful Claimants should have to pay their own success fees when instructing solicitors on a no win no fee basis, capped at 25% of damages. We on the Claimant side lobbied hard against these proposals, believing that the losing insurers should continue to pay the success fee themselves, but the Government ignored our arguments and the applicable change to the law came into effect from April 1st 2013. What this means in practical terms is that, as your success fee and unrecovered base costs will almost always exceed 25% of damages, then this is the amount that will have to be deducted from recovered damages to go towards your legal fees at the successful conclusion of your case.