No Cure No Pay roughly translated means: no result, no bill. Not for legal fees, not for costs that we (or third parties) had to make: no bill at all. The legal fees will be invoiced when our work has led to a result. And that is when the insurance company pays you, the victim, a compensation or advance payment.
When at some point an insurance company is not willing to cover the legal fees anymore a lot of personal injury professionals will either throw in the towel or either steer towards a pragmatic settlement of the personal injury case. However, if we are convinced that we can achieve a good result we persevere. No Cure No Pay and Personal Cure and Pay agreements make this possible. Where other personal injury firms quit, Van Dort continues.
With a No Cure No Pay agreement the legal fees and compensation of costs we made exist of a fixed percentage of the compensation you will receive, generally 15% excluding VAT. With this agreement you have no financial risk. You only pay when we achieve a result and receive compensation.
All costs that have to be made for an adequate handling of your case, like the costs of our work, medical advice or a legal procedure, are pre-financed by us. The maximum you have to pay is the fixed percentage of 15% (excluding VAT) of your compensation. If the actual costs are higher, that is our risk. Once liability is acknowledged the insurance company also has to pay our legal fees and expenses. What is paid by the insurance company will not be charged to you, but we will deduct this from the amount we can charge you. Because of this your costs will be lower than expected in most cases; sometimes this means you don’t have to pay anything at all!
When an accident happened or there has been a case of medical malpractice according to a client, it is not always clear if liability will be (fully) acknowledged. In some cases this can be very unsure. This means that it’s also not clear if there is an insurance company that will compensate you for your injuries and damages and will pay for legal assistance. In these cases a No Cure No Pay agreement can be interesting, because you don’t have the risk to receive an invoice for legal fees while we may not even achieve a result.
But No Cure No Pay or a fixed percentage agreement can also be interesting for other reasons. For example there is a big chance we have to take your case to court, because when we are presented with the case, it appears that the parties reached an impasse. We do not shy away from a legal procedure when this is in the interest of our client, but one of the downsides is that the costs of a legal procedure can add up and it is not a given that these costs will be covered. A legal procedure comes with a (big) financial risk. In this instance a No Cure No Pay case can provide a solution and limit your financial risk as a victim. We review your case beforehand and will inform you about the chances and risks, as well as the financial outline. This depends on the circumstances in your case and the points of discussion we can expect with the insurance company. Sometimes it is preferable that we agree on a Personal Cure and Pay agreement or an hourly rate agreement. We will inform you about the possibilities so you can make a choice for yourself.
We like full transparency and clear agreements. No unpleasant surprises in hindsight. It almost speaks for itself that we confirm the agreements in a written contract in comprehensible language. This is called the claims settlement contract. This way we both know what we can expect from each other.
The Supreme Court ruled in a case in 2014 that our No Cure No Pay agreements are reasonable and that, because of that, the legal fees should be fully paid by the liable insurance company. That means that in those instances we can offer our services to you for free.
Our firm offers No Cure No Pay and Personal Cure and Pay agreements when those agreements are in the interest of the victim. Besides that, with these agreements we can achieve results that other firms can’t or won’t achieve because they don’t want or dare to take such financial risk. If we are convinced that we can achieve a good result we are willing to carry the financial risk based on these agreements. Usually the victim is unable to make these costs themselves. In the past we have successfully brought cases to court and were able to have fundamental discussions with insurance companies. We even took some cases all the way to the Supreme Court.
