Navigating the world of making a claim after an injury or an incident of medical negligence can feel overwhelming for many.  If you’re working with the injured party you’re already looking at how their life has been impacted and how they might need to manage changes whilst going on both a physical and emotional journey.  You’re coordinating conversations with them and medical experts too.  So at this point you’d be forgiven for thinking the last thing you need is to discuss creating a Personal Injury Trust with your clients.

If your client is set to receive a settlement, then guiding them to consider creating a Trust early is important, particularly if your client is set to be in receipt of an interim payment.  Encouraging them to make sure they have an understanding of how their settlement award impacts their finances, not just now but in the future extends beyond the settlement and can have impacts on their eligibility for both benefits and community care support.

Safeguarding contributions to community care support

Most lawyers will be alive to the rationale behind advising their clients to create a PI Trust in order to safeguard a client’s current or imminent benefits position.  However safeguarding community care support is just as crucial a function of a PI Trust, and one that lawyers may be less familiar with.

Community care support involves ensuring the right level of intervention and support to enable people with health problems and disabilities to achieve maximum independence and control over their own lives.

What community care support someone is entitled to is assessed on a recipient’s own income and capital.  As a compensation award is a type of capital, not only can it be taken into account when a benefits assessment is being conducted, it can also impact community care support.  So not only could those funds from a settlement or interim payment lead to means-tested benefits being stopped or reduced, it can lead to any contributions your client is making towards the cost of any community care support increasing.  As a compensation award is strictly designed to put the claimant back in the position they would have been in but for the incident, it is important to support your client in safeguarding their financial position by signposting them to responsible financial options.

When to consider setting up a PI Trust

Whilst we can discuss the nuances of benefits allowances and community care support in depth (and we’re more than happy to do this with you), you can break down when to prompt your client to consider setting up a PI Trust if they fall into one of the four following categories:

  • They are below state pension age and in receipt of means-tested benefits.
  • They are any age and in receipt of community care support.
  • They are likely to fall into either of these groups imminently.
  • Your client wishes to protect their entitlement to means-tested benefits and/or community care funding in the future.

Our advice on setting a Trust up is to endeavour to engage with this process early once you are aware that an interim payment might be being made available, or that the case is likely to settle.  It can often take our dedicated PI Trusts team up to six weeks to get a Trust in place.  Some of this timeframe is out of our control as we are wating for the trustee bank account to be set up.

How can Frenkel Topping help? 

We have a dedicated end to end support service provision for PI Trusts.  From initial consultations on the viability of a PI Trust to drafting compliant trust deeds and setting up trustee bank accounts, we ensure a seamless process for our clients.  Our ongoing support includes financial planning and welfare benefits guidance.  This enables us to give referring lawyers and their clients peace of mind, and our focussed approach contributes to a 99% client retention rate.  From January-end August 2024 our team has set up over 700 PI Trusts and we’re so proud to announce that we have been shortlisted for PI Trust Provider of the year, for the third year in a row, in the Personal Injury Awards.   

Led by Alec Chan, he and his team are often the first point of contact for clients and excel in navigating the complex circumstances that bring people to us.  They undergo regular training and are well-versed in the latest industry standards and regulations, enabling them to provide clear guidance on the nuances of a compensation award’s impact on benefits entitlement and community care support, as well as how many trustees a PI Trust should have, who can be a Trustee, how Trust funds are accessed, etc.

We also have a helpful FAQ and video that we are happy to provide for enquiring clients.  If you’re part of a Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence or Private Client team and would like to arrange for a deep dive into PI Trusts, we offer a free training session delivered by our consultancy team that delves into both PI Trusts and Trusts for Minors and are delighted to spend time with legal teams tackling the nuance of PI Trusts and helping you to support your clients.

Contact us on enquiries@frenkeltopping.co.uk or on 0161 886 8000 to discuss referring your client to us for support, arrange training or receive our free PI Trusts FAQ.