Do I need a lawyer?
Six questions, an answer with its reasoning shown, and no referral at the end of it — because the useful question is whether advice changes your outcome, not who we would send you to.
Six questions
Answer all six to see the result.
What a lawyer actually changes
Start with the fee, because it differs by the type of claim. Injury work is usually taken for a share of what is recovered, so the first cost is a conversation rather than a bill; a coverage or property dispute is more often billed by the hour. Ask which one applies, what the share or the rate is, what comes out of the recovery before you see it, and who pays if the case is lost. Get the answer in writing at the first meeting.
What changes most is the other side’s arithmetic. An adjuster settling with a represented claimant prices in the cost of defending the file, and prices in the fact that it may now be read by somebody who does this for a living. That is worth a great deal on a disputed file and close to nothing on a clear one, which is why representation does not automatically lift a straightforward claim.
Filing suit is a different decision from getting advice, and a good lawyer will often talk you out of it. Litigation is slow, public, and expensive in attention as well as in money. The value of early advice is frequently the opposite of what people expect: being told that the offer in front of you is a reasonable one, and that the argument you were about to start is not worth the year it would take.
There are limits worth saying plainly. A lawyer cannot make a small, clear, well-documented claim bigger. They cannot revive a period that has already run out. They cannot make a policy cover something it does not cover. What they can do is stop an avoidable loss: a release signed too early, an injury described too casually, a deadline nobody was watching.
This tool has nothing to sell. Ariski takes no referral fees, keeps no panel of firms and passes your details to nobody, because nothing you answer here leaves your browser. When you do go looking for advice, your bar association, law society or the insurance regulator’s own consumer service is the place to start.
Most claims do not need a lawyer
It is worth saying that plainly, because a page like this is usually written by somebody who wants you to answer yes. A clear rear-end collision with no injury, a photographed scene, a written estimate and an insurer that is behaving normally is a claim you can run yourself, and running it yourself keeps all of the money. The overwhelming majority of motor claims are settled that way, and a lawyer cannot make a small, clear, well-documented claim bigger.
What changes the answer is not the size of the crash. It is the presence of one of a small number of specific complications: somebody was hurt, fault is genuinely in dispute, an insurer has taken a position against you, or a clock is running that you cannot see the end of. Those are the four the questionnaire is really looking for, and the reason it shows you its reasoning is so you can decide whether it has read your situation correctly.
The two mistakes that cost the most
The first is signing too early. A release closes heads of claim you have not thought about, and the one people forget is an injury that has not finished developing. Soft-tissue injuries in particular declare themselves over weeks, and a settlement signed in week two is a settlement signed without the information that mattered. This is the single clearest case for advice, and it is also the cheapest one, because a lawyer can answer it in an hour.
The second is waiting. A period that runs out cannot be argued with, and unlike everything else in a claim there is no appeal from it. People wait because a claim feels like it is still moving — a file is open, somebody has promised to call back, a document has been requested — and none of that stops a clock. If you are unsure what your deadline is, that uncertainty is the finding; the deadline calculator is the faster way to resolve it than waiting for somebody to mention it.
What a lawyer cannot do
Worth knowing before you pay for one. They cannot revive a period that has already expired. They cannot make a policy cover something it does not cover. They cannot turn a documented small loss into a large one, and a contingency share of a small clear recovery can leave you with less than you would have had alone. And they cannot manufacture evidence that was available at the scene and not collected — which is, in the end, the argument for the readiness checklist rather than for a lawyer.
What they can do is stop an avoidable loss and tell you when to stop. A good lawyer talks more clients out of litigation than into it, because a pleaded case is slow, public and expensive in attention as well as in money. Being told that the offer in front of you is a reasonable one is a genuinely valuable thing to be told, and it is not a service an insurer is in any position to provide.
Claim deadline calculator · Total loss estimator · Rules where you are
Frequently asked questions
Will this recommend a lawyer to me?
No, and it never will. There is no panel of firms behind this page, no referral arrangement, no fee paid to anyone, and nothing you answer leaves your browser. The question it answers is whether legal advice is likely to change your outcome — which is a different question from who should give it, and the only one a website can honestly help with. When you do go looking, your bar association, law society or the insurance regulator’s own consumer service is the place to start.
Why does an injury weigh so heavily?
Because an injury changes the kind of claim you are in rather than its size. The value is no longer a number from a repair estimate; it depends on prognosis, on treatment that may not have finished, and on heads of loss that are argued rather than invoiced. Signing a release while an injury is still developing is the single most expensive irreversible mistake available in a car insurance claim, and it is easy to make.
I answered not sure to most of them. Is that useless?
The opposite. Not knowing whether a deadline is close, or what your insurer has actually said, is itself a finding: it means the file is not under control. The tool treats uncertainty on the heavy questions as partial weight and says so, because the correct response to not knowing is to ask somebody rather than to wait and see.
What is different about the company register?
A company has two problems where a driver has one. There is the vehicle claim, and there is the company’s own exposure — whether it is liable for what its driver did, whether its cover responds, whether the exposure runs past the limits it bought. A reservation of rights from its own insurer is a different kind of bad news from a denial on a private policy, and a third party dealing directly with a driver is how a company loses control of a file it will end up paying for.
Does having a lawyer make an insurer pay more?
Sometimes, and not for flattering reasons. An adjuster settling with a represented claimant prices in the cost of defending and the fact that the file may now be read by somebody who does this for a living. That is worth a great deal on a disputed or injury file and close to nothing on a clear, well-documented property claim — which is why representation does not automatically lift a straightforward claim, and why paying a share of a small clear recovery can leave you worse off.
What should I ask at a first consultation?
Four things, and get the answers in writing. Whether the fee is a share of the recovery or an hourly rate, and what the share or the rate is. What comes out of any recovery before you see it. Who pays if the case is lost. And, most usefully, what you should not sign and what you should not say while the claim is open. A good first meeting often ends with advice not to litigate, which is worth the fee on its own.
This guide explains how car insurance claims generally work. It is not legal advice, does not create a lawyer–client relationship, and is not a statement of any insurer's or regulator's position. Rules change and differ by jurisdiction; check the cited instrument and, where money or injury is at stake, consult a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.