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How much compensation can I claim for injury in Belgium

Here you will find useful information and advice on how to make holiday accident claims in Belgium if you have suffered an accident, injury or illness whilst on vacation.

Holiday accident BelgiumIt is aimed at assisting UK holidaymakers to get the medical attention and help from the emergency services they need whilst in Belgium, and also to educate them about the holiday compensation claims process.

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A Guide to Accident Claims in Belgium

Belgium is one of the most popular European destinations for UK tourists. Almost 2 million holidaymakers visit Belgium every year. For most of these visitors, Belgium is a safe place to enjoy a relaxing holiday, and they return home safely. Unfortunately, for a small percentage of visitors, a pleasant break turns into an ongoing nightmare, due to them becoming the victim of an accident or injury or contracting an illness while they are on holiday.

This guide to holiday accident claims in Belgium is aimed at these unfortunate people. It aims to fulfil two key functions; 1) to provide the information that holidaymakers need to be able to deal with an emergency while on holiday in Belgium, and 2) to make sure that the holidaymaker understands the best steps to take to ensure that they have the best chance possible of claiming holiday compensation once they return to the UK.

This guide includes:

  • A list of contact numbers for the emergency services in Belgium.
  • Details on how to gain access to healthcare services whilst on holiday in Belgium.
  • The steps you can take whilst on vacation, and when you get home to the UK, to ensure you have the best chance to win any claim for compensation.
  • An overview of the most common types of accident/injury/illness claims made by holidaymakers, and best practices for claiming compensation for them.
  • An overview of the national No Win No Fee claims service offered by us here at Legal Expert as the simplest, most effective way to claim holiday compensation for an accident, injury or illness that occurred whilst on holiday in Belgium.

If you have any questions that remain unanswered once you have read this guide, then please do contact Legal Expert on the number at the bottom of this page, so we can discuss your specific situation with you.

What to Do If You Have an Accident or Are Injured in Belgium

If you have been unfortunate while on vacation in Belgium, and have become the victim of an accident, sustained a personal injury, or contracted an illness, then in certain circumstances you may be able to claim holiday compensation.

There are key steps you can take, whilst still on vacation and once you return to the UK, in order to have the best chance of winning any compensation claim you make, and also to have the best chance of being awarded the most compensation possible.

Steps you can take while still on holiday in Belgium:

  • If you are involved in an accident such as a car or motorcycle crash, ensure that the police are notified if they do not attend the scene of the accident. Make a note of the names of the police officers that you deal with and ask them for the case number.
  • If you booked your trip with a package holiday or tour operator in the UK, you must notify them of the incident. Again, make a note of the person you deal with, and ask them for any unique reference number for the incident.
  • Make sure that you receive proper medical treatment for any injury, no matter how minor. Note the names of the doctors who treat you and ask for the case number of your medical file, or a copy of your file if possible.
  • If you intend to claim for private healthcare while you are on holiday in Belgium, you should contact your medical or travel insurance firm, so that they can approve the medical facility you intend using, and the treatment you will be undergoing.
  • Gather the contact details of any witnesses to the incident that caused the accident or injury. Even if these are local Belgian people, their testimony might be needed sometime later in the claims process.
  • Take photographs of anything you feel pertains to the incident. For example, if you slip, trip or fall on a badly maintained pavement, photograph it so that it can be presented as evidence to prove liability at a later stage.

Steps you can take when you return home to the UK after your holiday in Belgium:

  • Visit your GP or the hospital to have any injuries checked out, and to make sure that the treatment you received in Belgium was sufficient. This will cause your injury to be officially recorded within the UK health system.
  • Contact your package holiday or tour company to check that they have all of the details you previously gave them and that the facts they have are correct.
  • Call Legal Expert on the number at the bottom of this page, so that we can explain how our national holiday claims service can help you to claim the compensation you are entitled to.

At the links below you will find detailed, specific information pertaining to holiday accident claims and package holiday claims:

A guide to claiming for accidents that happen overseas

A guide to claiming compensation from a package tour operator

How to Contact the Emergency Services in Belgium

If you are unfortunate while you are on holiday Belgium, and become the victim of an accident, suffer an injury, or contract an illness, you will need to contact the relevant emergency services. You will find the telephone numbers of all Belgian emergency services below, as well as the British Embassy.

  • General Emergency – 112
  • Police – 101
  • Fire service – 100
  • Red Cross – 105

Additionally, there is an English language Community Helpline that is available 24 hours a day on 02 648 40 14.

The British Embassy in Brussels can be contacted on (+32) 2 287 62 11.

These contact details should enable you to take all of the steps needed to ensure that you have the best chance of successfully claiming holiday compensation when you return home to the UK, including:

  • Contacting the police if appropriate
  • Receiving proper medical care
  • Contacting your tour or package holiday vendor
  • Contacting your medical/travel insurance firm

Getting Medical Attention and Treatment in Belgium

Before you return home and start thinking about claiming compensation in Belgium, you need to make sure any injury or illness has been treated properly while you are on holiday.

Belgium participates in the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) scheme. This means that for NHS reimbursement treatment abroad in Belgium is possible. Using an EHIC card will give you access to the same level of free treatment as Belgian nationals. However, it does not cover medical repatriation, ongoing treatment as an outpatient, or non-urgent treatment that can wait until you return home to the UK.

You can visit this link for information on how to apply for a European Health Insurance Card. If you forget to take your card with you on holiday to Belgium or lose it while you are on vacation, you can the Department of Health Overseas Healthcare Team on +44 191 218 1999) and they will arrange a temporary card for you.

If you decide that you would rather use private healthcare services in Belgium, you will need to clear the cost through your medical or travel insurance firm beforehand. Usually, the insurer will deal directly with the healthcare provider to pay all medical bills. In certain situations, you might need to pay the medical bills yourself, and then claim back the money when you are back in the UK.

Put simply, when it comes to using your Hospital insurance Belgium healthcare services must be approved by your insurer before you use them, otherwise you risk having to pay the entire medical bill yourself.

Compensation Claim Time Limits in Belgium

If you are Injured in Belgium while you are on holiday, or suffer an injury or develop an illness, you may be able to claim compensation. However, there are set time limits within which you are allowed to make a claim, and these are detailed in the table below:

Edit
Circumstance of Claim Time Limit
On a trip, tour package holiday or flight booked through a UK vendor. 3 years may very
On a trip or flight booked privately. 5 years may very
On a privately booked flight too or from:
• Ostend Bruges International Airport
• Brussels Airport
• Liege Airport
• Antwerp International Airport		 2 years may very

Compensation for Belgian Package Tours

If you booked your holiday, flight or trip through a UK based travel vendor such as EasyJet, British Airways Holidays, Virgin Holidays or TUI, you will have a much simpler route to claiming compensation than if you booked your travel privately.

This is because package holiday vendors and tour operators that are based in the UK are governed by the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations of 1992.

What this means, is that these UK based travel firms have to comply with a legal framework that is designed to protect UK consumers, and give them certain rights with regard to claiming compensation for illnesses, accidents and injuries on holiday. As well as additional protection such as holiday compensation for delays.

This is why it is absolutely crucial that if you are involved in an accident, suffer an injury, or become sick while on holiday in Belgium, and you booked your trip in the UK through a UK based vendor, that you contact the company to inform them of your problem. As long as you do this, and Legal Expert can prove that your travel vendor is liable for the accident injury or illness, then you will have a viable route to claiming compensation.

Belgian Injury Claims We Can Help With

The legal team that operates the national claims service offered by Legal Expert, has plenty of experience claiming compensation across a wide range of cases. We can claim against local UK tour operators, and also organisations that are based overseas such as a Belgian hospital. The most typical types of claims cases we see with regards to holiday compensation are:

  • Hotel accident claims – where a hotel resident has been injured due to a physical accident caused by oversight, bad management or insufficient care on the part of the hotel operator.
  • Cycling accident claims – Belgium is a popular cycle touring destination for UK tourists in the summer months.
  • Food-related illnesses – such as food poisoning that is contracted due to bad hygiene in a hotel or restaurant.
  • Slips, trips or falls – caused by faulty pathways or public accessible flooring which is dirty, wet or obstructed.
  • Road traffic accidents – either as the driver or passenger of a private vehicle, or whilst travelling on public transport.

Although these are the most common types of holiday compensation claims we see here at Legal Expert, there are many more. If none of these fit exactly with your particular situation, give us a call on the number at the bottom of this page so that we can answer any questions you may have about our national holiday claims service.

Hotel Accident Claims

There are many ways that a resident can come to harm when staying in a hotel, such as:

  • Slips, trips or falls due to faulty, wet or obstructed pathways.
  • Swimming pool accidents caused by badly maintained facilities or inadequate supervision.
  • Gym or exercise equipment accidents caused by badly maintained facilities or inadequate supervision.
  • Food-related illnesses contracted through insufficient hygiene and care during food preparation the hotel restaurant.
  • Injuries caused through faulty room facilities such as electric shocks or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Cycling Accident Claims

Because of its relatively flat geography, Belgium is a very popular cycling destination for UK tourists in the summer months. Although cycling accidents are not the most common type of road accidents in Belgium, they can and do occur quite frequently.

If Legal Expert can prove that the tour operator you used to book your cycling trip in Belgium was at fault, then we will be able to claim cycling holiday compensation on your behalf.

Restaurant Illness, Accident or Food Poisoning Claims

It is an unfortunate fact that many UK citizens who travel abroad, suffer from some form of stomach problem whilst abroad. This can range from a mild case of an upset stomach that is little more than an annoyance, to a full-blown case of food poisoning that requires the sufferer to be hospitalised.

If you contract a food-related illness at a hotel or restaurant while on holiday in Belgium, then Legal Expert could help you claim compensation. However, it is important that you receive proper medical attention in Belgium, which documents the illness and its cause.

Slips, Trips, and Falls

The most common type of accident in the world are slips, trips or falls. When we go on holiday from the UK we often leave the safe, even and well-maintained pavements behind and have to navigate badly maintained, or simply dangerous walkways in a foreign country.

There is also the risk of a slip, trip or fall while we board or disembark from our travel transportation such as a plane, train or bus.

Legal Expert can help people who were injured due to a slip, trip or fall while on holiday in Belgium to claim the compensation they are entitled to.

Road Traffic Accidents in Belgium

If you are involved in a car accident in Belgium what to do to make sure you have the best chance of claiming compensation may not be uppermost in your mind. You need to make sure you take steps such as:

  • Reporting the accident to the police.
  • Gathering witness contact details.
  • Taking photographs of all the vehicles involved.

Although Belgium used to have a terrible road traffic accident problem, this has changed in the last 15 years, and now Belgium has less than 1,000 fatal vehicle accidents each year. However, car, bicycle and motorcycle accidents can and do still occur in Belgium, and Legal Expert can help you claim compensation if you are involved in one.

Do I Need to Use a Belgian Solicitor for My Claim?

There is no benefit at all in using a solicitor in Belgium to make your holiday compensation claim. The national holiday compensation claims service that Legal Expert operates, is the simplest, most effective way to claim against both UK based travel vendors and overseas travel providers such as hotels, restaurants and tour operators.

Contact Legal Expert on the phone number at the bottom of this page, to find out whether you are eligible to claim compensation, even if it is against a hotel, restaurant or other tourism-related company that is based in Belgium.

No Win No Fee Holiday Compensation Claims

Legal Expert offers UK residents who have been the victim of an accident, suffered an injury, or became ill whilst on holiday in Belgium, a simple, effective way to claim holiday compensation under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA).

Under this kind of No Win No Fee deal, we don’t charge you a fee to begin your claim, and there are no ongoing legal fees to pay across the lifetime of the claim. If for some reason we fail to make your claim successfully, you don’t have anything to pay at all. When you receive a compensation payment, we will ask you to pay our fee, out of the money you receive. This means that the entire process for claiming holiday compensation after your trip to Belgium is entirely risk-free from a financial point of view. You really have nothing to lose.

Major Municipalities And Cities Of Belgium

  • Antwerp
  • Ghent
  • Charleroi
  • Liège
  • Brussels
  • Bruges
  • Schaerbeek
  • Namur
  • Anderlecht
  • Leuven
  • Mons
  • Sint-Jans-Molenbeek
  • Mechelen
  • Ixelles
  • Aalst
  • La Louvière

What Should You Do Next

If you believe you have a valid reason to make a compensation claim following an accident or injury while on holiday in Belgium or for an illness you contracted due to the actions of a hotel or restaurant in Belgium, then call Legal Expert on 0800 073 8804 today.

Once we have taken all of the details about your situation the events leading up to it, we will give you some free legal advice on what to do next. In many cases, we will offer to take on your compensation claim using our national holiday compensation claims service. A No Win No Fee scheme for claiming the damages you are entitled to when you return to the UK after your holiday in Belgium.

Useful Links

British Embassy Brussels

Avenue d’Auderghem 10

1040 Brussels

Belgium

Tel: (+32) 2 287 62 11

Web: https://www.gov.uk/world/organisations/british-embassy-brussels

Opening times: Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.

At the link below, you will find detailed information that has been published by the NHS in the UK, on how to secure healthcare services and medical treatment while you are on holiday in Belgium.

NHS guide to healthcare in Belgium