What happens once you’ve submitted a claim
When you send us a claim form it begins a legal process. We will acknowledge your claim via email within 10 working days.
Each claim goes through a specific, legal process and is investigated on a case-by-case basis. Your claim will be fully examined and once our investigation is complete, we will pass the claim over to our claims handling agent.
It may be that someone else is responsible, or that the place where it happened is the responsibility of others. We will let you know if this is the case.
Each claim is assessed on its own merits.
It may take up to 18 weeks to investigate your claim. At busy times or when we have limited resources it may take longer to investigate claims prior to passing them to the insurance team.
Decision
The insurance team review and register the claim with the insurers within five working days of receipt. Our insurers use an independent claims handling agent to look at your claim. They will review all the information and determine whether the Council is liable for the alleged damage / injury.
Claim handlers use the law to assess and determine whether any compensation is due. The Council is not involved in this decision and has no influence on the claim’s outcome. In line with the legal process, the Council cannot comment on or reverse any decision on liability. This part of the process may take 3-6 months to determine, depending on the complexity of the case however the insurers will aim to process (if possible) within a shorter period of time.
GDPR
Personal information collected on the claim form will be used by the City of Edinburgh Council to process the claim and will be retained securely. The information will only be disclosed to other agencies in connection with processing the claim and identifying potential cases of fraud. This includes periodic matching exercises such as the National Fraud Initiative. Those agencies will be similarly subject to the requirements of the Data Protection Act.
If you would like to know how the City of Edinburgh Council collects, uses and shares your personal information, please visit our website to access our online Privacy notices.
Fraud statement
It is an offence to make a fraudulent claim for financial loss or personal injury or to exaggerate one. We have a duty to protect public funds and will use the information you provide for the detection and prevention of fraud. Our agents and ourselves may share this information with other government, legal and insurance bodies for these purposes. We may also share this information with other bodies for the auditing or administration of public funds for these purposes.
