How does CICA handle my application?
What happens when CICA make their decision?
What do I do if I agree with CICA's decision?
What if I disagree with CICA's decision?
How are the awards paid?
How does CICA handle my application?
When we receive your completed application form, we will give you a personal reference number. This helps us identify your case quickly when you contact us. We will then contact the police and, if we need to, your doctor or the hospital that treated you, and any other organisations or people with relevant information about your claim.
If you need help or advice while we are working on your claim you can call us on freephone 0800 358 3601.
As soon as your case is registered we start our enquiries by gathering information from the police. This helps us assess whether you are eligible. When we get the police report we will decide whether we can take your application further. We may need more information before we can make a final decision. It takes time to collect this information but we work closely with the police and medical authorities to get it as quickly as possible. We will write to tell you about our progress.
How long will this take?
We may take a year or more to make a final decision. More complex cases can take longer, especially if they involve loss of earnings or future medical expenses.
Wherever possible, we settle applications by offering a single payment of compensation - a final award. But we can only do this if your medical condition and financial losses are clear. If there is likely to be a long delay in getting this information, but you are clearly eligible for compensation, we may be able to pay some of the money before the final award is made. We call this an interim payment and we would deduct it from your final payment.
What do you do with my personal information?
We keep and use the information you provide under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. This means you can ask to see all the personal information we have about you.
What happens when CICA make their decision?
As soon as we make a decision, we will write to tell you or your representative what it is.
If we have reduced or refused an award, we will tell you why.
What do I do if I agree with CICA's decision?
If you wish to accept our decision, you will need to sign the acceptance form and return it to us.
We need your written acceptance of an award within 90 days of the date the decision was issued. If we do not get this within 90 days and you do not apply for a review, we may withdraw the award.
What if I disagree with CICA's decision?
Asking for a review
If you disagree with our decision, you can ask for it to be reviewed. We send you a review form and a guide to review procedures when we issue the first decision. The person who made the first decision will not make the review decision.
Appealing against the review decision
If you disagree with our review decision you can appeal to the Tribunals Service - Criminal Injuries Compensation (TS), who are independent of us. We will send you an appeal form and a guide to appeal procedures when we issue the review decision.
How are the awards paid?
We pay awards electronically to bank or building society accounts.
We no longer accept an instruction to make an award payable to anyone other than the applicant. This policy applies to applications received on or after 7 October 2010. Applications received prior to this date will continue to have the facility to pay an applicant's award to a nominated person such as a representative, friend or relative should the applicant instruct us to do so.
This change in policy does not affect applications made on behalf of adults who do not manage their own financial affairs or applications made on behalf of children or young people. We will continue to operate a policy of retaining awards until children or young people reach the age of 18, as outlined below.
Special arrangements for payment of awards
We may sometimes need to make special arrangements for paying an award, to take account of the circumstances of the victim or other relevant issues.
For example, if the victim is a child we will retain the award in an interest-bearing bank account until the child is 18 years old. Awards for adults legally incapable of handling their own affairs may be paid into trusts for the applicant’s benefit.