No serious lawyer can tell you "what your case is worth" at the first meeting. What can be explained precisely is the structure of the award: the heads of damage, what feeds each one, and the evidence each demands.
Why Structure, Not Numbers
Every award is the sum of distinct heads of damage, each with its own logic and its own evidence. Two claimants with the same injury can recover very different amounts because their lives, earnings and futures differ. So the useful first conversation is not a number: it is which heads your facts support, and what has to be gathered to prove each. The claim is built head by head, and the new procedure rules reflect exactly this structure: the pre-action letter itself distinguishes special from general damages and requires a schedule with supporting documents.
General Damages: What Cannot Be Counted
The first family covers what has no invoice. Pain and suffering: the physical pain and the mental suffering the injuries caused and will cause, a head the Supreme Court has confirmed extends to psychological harm. Loss of amenity: the permanent loss of the ability to enjoy activities, relationships and the ordinary functions of life. Disfigurement, where the injury changed appearance permanently.
These are assessed by the court, not calculated: the judge weighs the medical evidence and places the case against comparable decided cases. That is why the medical file and the honest, specific description of a changed daily life matter more here than anything else.
Special Damages: The Documented Past
The second family is arithmetic, up to the date of trial: medical, hospital and physiotherapy expenses; care that had to be paid for; net earnings actually lost while out of work, with benefits received brought into account; transport and the other real costs the injury caused. Every item lives or dies on its paperwork, receipts, payslips, employer letters, which is why we tell clients from day one: keep everything, and keep it organised. The procedure rules expect a schedule of these losses with the documents behind it.
The single most common way claimants lose money is not bad law but missing paper: the expense that was real, and unprovable.
Future Losses: The Head That Changes Lives
Where the injury reaches into the future, the award follows it. Future loss of earning capacity is assessed on the multiplier method the Cyprus courts apply in the English tradition: the annual net loss, multiplied by a factor reflecting the remaining working years, discounted for early receipt. The Supreme Court has recently upheld substantial awards on this basis in workplace injury cases. Future medical costs and future care, private treatment, aids, assistance the claimant can no longer provide for themselves, are separate heads with their own expert evidence.
This is where serious injuries diverge from minor ones, and where expert evidence, medical, actuarial, occupational, earns its cost.
Interest, and the Two Great Reductions
Interest is awarded as a matter of law, not grace: on special damages it typically runs from the date of the accident, on general damages usually from the filing of the action, at the statutory rate in force. The two reductions to keep honestly in view: contributory negligence, which trims the award by the claimant's own share of fault, no seatbelt, no helmet, a risk knowingly run, and the duty to mitigate, because losses that reasonable treatment or a reasonable return to work would have avoided are not recovered.
What Is Not Awarded
Cyprus courts compensate; they do not punish. There is no lottery multiplier for indignation, no award for the anger the accident caused, and exaggeration is not harmless: a claim caught inflating one head loses credibility on all of them. The realistic assessment, head by head, evidence by evidence, is what we prepare before proceedings are considered: see our pages on personal injury claims and, for the road-accident sequence specifically, the claim step by step.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why will you not just tell me what my case is worth?
Because the honest answer at the start is a structure, not a figure. Once the medical position stabilises and the documents are in, a realistic range can be given, and it is built exactly the way the court will build it: head by head, against comparable cases.
The insurer's offer is one round number. How do I judge it?
By decomposition: what does it implicitly allocate to each head, and how does that compare with your evidence under each? A round number that cannot survive that exercise is an opening position, not a valuation.
Do I really need experts?
For the heads that reach into the future, effectively yes: future earnings and future care are proved, not asserted. For a modest claim that has healed fully, the medical file alone may carry it. The assessment tells you which case you have.
Related Reading
Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus
A Road Accident Claim in Cyprus, Step by Step
How a Negligence Claim Works in Cyprus
By Klitos Platis, Advocate
Klitos advises on litigation, corporate and commercial law, real estate, construction and energy at Kleanthous & Platis LLC in Nicosia.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws and their application can change, and individual circumstances differ. For advice on your own matter, contact Klitos Platis at klitos@kleanthousplatis.com or telephone +357 22 680 330.
Klitos Platis
Advocate, Partner
Kleanthous & Platis LLC, Nicosia · Published 3 August 2026
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