If you have to go to Law for an accident claim you may be offered a "no win, no fee" agreement or even a contingency fee agreement, but what's the difference?

A Conditional Fee Agreement is what is commonly referred to as a no-win, no-fee agreement.

This means that if a claim fails you don't pay your solicitor but if it succeeds your solicitor claims his costs and a success fee (uplift on costs) from the opponent in the case.

A Contingency Fee Agreement is common in the USA and less common here. If the claim fails then you do not pay your solicitor but if the claim succeeds your solicitor gets a percentage of the compensation as costs.

Such agreements are only allowed in certain cases over here such as Motor Insurers' Bureau or Criminal Injuries Compensation claims.

The reason a solicitor may want to act on a contingency fee basis in such claims is because he/she will receive no or only limited costs from CICA and the MIB respectively, and solicitors have to make a living, too!

Most solicitors won't touch CICA claims unlss they are noteable, as they take so long to go through and the payouts are so lame. The fee's they can also claim are also lame.

RTA's are the holy grail of the claims industry though hehe (was a temporary area manager for a mates PIC company a few years back).

One thing to be careful of, is some solicitors and claims management companies, will try and sign clients up to an unsecured credit agreement; if the claim fails, they sometimes have loopholes in the terms and conditions which stipulate you still have to pay the agreement back. If this is the case, do not touch them with a bargepole, any company who is not taking the pi$$, will only take on claims that they feel are true and likely to go through, and therefore they will be able to claim some of the cost.