Most basic homeowners insurance will have legal expenses insurance attached to it. This may include cover for medical negligence claims. You will need to check your homeowners insurance policy to see if you are covered.

What is medical negligence?
If you have undergone medical treatment which you believe was not carried out correctly and this has caused you further injury or further loss, you may have a claim for medical negligence. It is not the same as a personal injury claim. This means you may be able to pursue a legal action against them for compensation.

This area of law is complex and the claims are by no means straightforward. Your legal expenses insurance may be able to fund a solicitor to take the case on.

What do I need to prove?
There are two main issues you will need to prove when bringing this type of legal claim.

Firstly you must be able to prove that the treatment provided to you was not of a reasonable standard. The basic test is whether a reasonable body of practitioners would have treated you in the same way. If the answer to this is yes, you may not have a claim. Unfortunately there is no straightforward way of knowing whether you do have a claim or not, this can only be determined once expert medical evidence has been obtained. It is worth noting that a very high percentage of medical negligence claims do not succeed. This could be for many reasons but for example, it could be that a medical expert believes that the treatment would have been the same even if it was provided by a different practitioner.

If you are able to prove that the treatment provided to you was negligent or fell below reasonable standards you have passed this criteria. The second part of these claims is showing that the poor treatment caused you further injury or further loss that would not have occurred if the treatment was carried out to a reasonable standard.

Unfortunately sometimes the nature of the disease or illness is such that the outcome would have been the same, regardless of the standard of treatment.

If you are able to satisfy both of the above criteria you may be eligible to bring a claim against them for compensation. In this case, you should contact your basic homeowners insurance legal expenses provider as soon as possible and register your claim. Normally they will arrange for a claim form to be sent out to you. You should complete this form as accurately as possible and return it to them without delay. It is usual that you will be asked to send a chronology of events to enable the claims assessor to understand the circumstances of your claim.

Even basic homeowners insurance policy will have different policy wording with different conditions and exclusions. It is common for basic homeowners insurance polices to exclude any claims arising from negligent medical treatment or perhaps for claims which do not arise from a sudden or a specific accident. It would be a good idea to check your policy wording for such exclusions.

In addition some basic home owners insurance policies will require you to obtain and provide expert medical evidence at your own expense to support your claims that your treatment was in fact negligent.

Author: Vicki Churchill

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Article source: Free Insurance Articles.