Almost every difficult argument we have with an insurer comes down to something nobody recorded at the time. CCTV that was overwritten after 14 days. A pothole filled in the following week. A witness whose name nobody took.
None of this requires you to think like a lawyer. It requires about twenty minutes, at a moment when you will least feel like doing it.
1. Get the injury looked at, and get it recorded
See a doctor or go to A&E even if you think you will be fine tomorrow. This is partly for your health and partly because the medical note made on the day is the single most persuasive document in a claim. An injury first recorded three weeks later invites an argument that it was caused by something else.
2. Photograph everything, before it changes
The hazard itself. The wider scene, so it is obvious where the hazard was. Your injuries, and again a few days later when bruising has come out. Vehicle positions and damage. Any warning sign, or the empty spot where one should have been.
3. Report it, in writing
An accident at work goes in the accident book. An accident in a shop gets reported to the manager and you ask for the incident reference. A road accident gets reported to the police where the law requires it. A pavement defect gets reported to the council, which also creates a dated record.
4. Take names
Witnesses move house and change jobs. A phone number written down on the day is worth more than a perfect memory six months later.
5. Start a folder
Receipts, prescriptions, travel costs, dates you were off work. These are recoverable, and they are the losses most often forgotten because each one is individually small.
6. Be careful what you sign
An insurer may contact you quickly, sound sympathetic, and offer to settle before you have had a medical report. Once you accept, that is the end of the claim, even if the injury turns out to be far worse than it looked in week one.